Water campaigners at Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Mt Albert electorate office this morning. Photo / Supplied
Water campaigners at Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Mt Albert electorate office this morning. Photo / Supplied
Water campaigners have made a personal plea to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to deliver rivers safe enough to swim in, as scientists begin a new nationwide stocktake of their health risks.
At Ardern's Mt Albert electoral office this morning, members of the groups Choose Clean Water and Action Station dropped by a giant Christmas card, depicting the Prime Minister as Santa Claus and delivering a present labelled "clean, healthy rivers".
They were calling for strong water policy in 2020, after the Government announced a raft of proposed policy changes earlier this year.
"New Zealanders want to hand this important gift down to their kids and to do that we need the Government to deliver on its election promises," Choose Clean Water spokeswoman Marnie Prickett said.
We're outside PM Jacinda Ardern's electoral office delivering here a huge Christmas card asking her to deliver clean, healthy rivers for NZ. It's one if the most important gifts we can give our country and our kids. #ChooseCleanWater
The card specifically reminded Ardern of a comment she made at a 2017 conference: "I have never accepted that we have to choose between a clean environment and a prosperous economy."
The campaigners argued there are two crucial elements needed for the Government's water policy to genuinely deliver on Labour's promises.
One was a strong bottom line for nitrogen – set at 1mg/L – as too much of the contaminant increased algal blooms and affected drinking water.
The other was effective rules are needed to stop poor practices like high nitrogen fertiliser use.
"In the coming year, 2020, we are looking forward to the Government delivering the gift of clean, healthy rivers to New Zealanders," Prickett said.
New stocktake under way
Meanwhile, ESR scientists are gathering data on a range of pathogens from 16 sites across the country, in a Government-funded pilot to test methods for a larger, more comprehensive nationwide study.
The last time a study of that size was carried out was 20 years ago – and what came out of it informs recreational water quality guidelines that are used today.
Yet, since then, scientists say large-scale shifts in land use and water management have likely changed the risk.
ESR microbiologist Dr Sarah Coxon says the most commonly recognised risk to human health posed by contact with freshwater is faecal contamination, carrying a range of pathogenic organisms, including bacteria, viruses and protozoa.
Water campaigners have made a personal plea to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to deliver rivers safe enough to swim in. Photo / File
Since the last survey, there had also been big advances in laboratory analyses that better detect pathogens and characterise the threat they posed us.
"We need to ensure that the public health advice in the guidelines accounts for any change, and is correctly estimating the human health risk."
The pilot will be analysing water samples for a range of pathogens including campylobacter, salmonella, pathogenic E. coli, giardia, cryptosporidium, adenoviruses, enteroviruses, and noroviruses.
The samples will be compared with indicator organisms E.coli and enterococci, as well as markers for sources of faecal identification.
It comes after updated water quality data from the joint Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA), website - measuring more than 1400 sites across New Zealand under nine indicators - showed the country's rivers were generally in a worrying state.
When measuring E. coli, around 45 per cent of sites had been either "likely" or "very likely" degrading, while at another 21 per cent of sites, results weren't clear.
While most strains of E. coli are harmless, some could make people sick, cause severe stomach cramps, diarrhoea and vomiting.
The picture for total nitrogen (TN) - a key nutrient linked to fertiliser, farm run-off and industrial waste that could fuel algae growth in rivers - were also dismal.
About half of river sites showed worsening trends, while there wasn't enough data at 17 per cent of sites to say either way.
Under another critical measure of a river's ecological health, called the Macroinvertebrate Community Index or MCI, only a quarter of sites were improving.
Previous reports have shown how levels of E. Coli were 22 times higher in waterways in towns and cities than in the relatively unspoiled waterways that flow through our native wilderness.
Earlier this year, the Government unveiled a package of proposed reforms to help turn the picture around.
They include new environmental standards that would effectively put the brakes on further intensification of dairy farms; a requirement for farmers to have "farm plans" by 2025 and more stringent rules around fencing and nitrogen loss, with some catchments facing having to cut rates by as much as 80 per cent over the next few years.
Councils would have to put the health and wellbeing of water first in decision-making, adopt tougher rules for wastewater discharges, use more monitoring indicators, and ensure swimming spots were at higher standards over summer.
