'All talk, no action' over waterways

UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM: A cow grazing on the Waitaua Stream which drains into Hatea River near Whangarei Falls. PHOTO/MILLAN RUKA

Clean-waterways advocate Millan Ruka says there is "too much hui but little doey" when it come to keeping farm stock out of waterways.

In response to concerns about faecal contamination in the popular swimming hole at Whangarei Falls, Mr Ruka, from Environment River Patrol Aotearoa, said effluent from cows fouling Waitaua Stream would take less than two hours to flow downstream to the Falls.

Mr Ruka said he recently notified Northland Regional Council (NRC) and supplied photos of cows grazing the banks and getting into Waitaua Stream 2.5km up from the Falls, where a permanent Whangarei District Council health warning about faecal contamination is posted. Despite the health warning, the spot remains a popular swimming area.

Mr Ruka's February report to the NRC included notification of a sheep carcass upstream from the Falls which was removed some days later. He said he had made three reports regarding contamination by dairy cows and cattle at the same site since November 2013.

"But I do see some activity with a trough and pond going in. Maybe a fence will come later," he said.

"However, several hundred dairy and beef cattle are unfenced to the waterways of the Hatea Catchment and there is a Code Red issued at the Whangarei Falls where all these streams feed to."

Mr Ruka said many dairy farmers now fenced off waterways because Fonterra would not collect suppliers' milk if they contravened a clean-water accord, but no accord applied to drystock.

He described the NRC's new 10-year policy review of the Regional Water and Soil Plan as "a nonsense" that had been hijacked by commercial interests.

"The NRC showed their existing policy on cattle on unfenced waterways and it was less than half a page. I pointed out that Whangarei District Council had 22 pages on by-laws for parking your car in this city and yet you can park 400 head of cattle on a riverbank and it's all okay."

Mr Ruka said he will continue to campaign for "quality over quantity" regarding water use, to have drystock included in stock-exclusion fencing rules, and for a tougher stance on non-compliant effluent ponds.

"Where is the independent balance to keep this all in check? We have all sorts of agencies for noise control, dog rangers, parking wardens, etc, but no independent waterway patrols for the combined $23 billion dairy and beef industry," he said.

"Instead, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars monitoring how bad it's getting. Everyone wants to study it, there's a lot of hui but little doey."