Comment: While New Zealand is travelling in the right direction with water quality goals Southland Federated Farmers Vice President, Bernadette Hunt isn't sure Action for Healthy Waterways regulations are the right path.
Rural and urban New Zealanders have a shared goal for improved water quality. We have the direction of travel; the question is whether the new Action for Healthy Waterways regulations are the right path.
Covid-19 is our present focus, with our attention consumed by 1pm announcements, alert levels and the source of new Covid-19 cases. A backdrop theme is our economic recovery: how much pain we will feel, and how long we will feel it for.
Naturally, we assume the Government's attention is focused on policy that will get us through Covid-19 and allow a quick recovery. This is not a time to pass policy that would undermine the economic recovery by dramatically increasing rates, stifling development, and hamstringing the economy, right?
Yet that is exactly what the Government did, in what was to be its final sitting week, prior to the decision to push out the election date. And there was barely a whimper from mainstream media.
The new freshwater regulations look good from the outside, but once you dig into the detail it becomes apparent we're looking at impractical and very expensive regulations, for rural and urban alike. It's improved water quality with a hefty price tag.
I have not heard a single person, rural or urban, argue that improving water quality is not a worthwhile goal. The issue is with the proposed methods, and the short timeframes.
What has to date been sold as a rural problem is no longer only a rural problem. These methods have regional, district and city councils quaking.
Down in my neck of the woods, Gore District Council will be one of the first affected with its resource consent renewal for treated wastewater discharge into the Mataura river, due in a couple of years.
Just to complete the development required to remove nitrates from that treated wastewater is an estimated $50 - $60 million project.
It is questionable whether a treated urban wastewater discharge to water will ever get a consent renewal under the new national regulations. Requiring a discharge of treated wastewater to land would mean the costs to ratepayers would rapidly skyrocket.
Gore District Council also has urban stormwater to deal with, including a $180 million project to deal with stormwater mixing with wastewater.
Those costs would have to be met by the district's 4,620 urban ratepayers – a burden of around $50,000 per ratepayer for the two projects combined.
Many of these are the same ratepayers who own our small businesses and employ locals – moteliers, café owners, retailers and tradies.They're already struggling right now with the economic repercussions of Covid-19.
Gore District Council is not alone – problems like this are common throughout New Zealand's water infrastructure.
Listen to Andy Thompson interview Bernadette Hunt on The Muster below:
Environment Southland submitted strongly against the proposed regulations.
It has already spent millions on the Southland Water and Land Plan to date, developing regulations that are right for Southland.
Now, thanks to Action for Healthy Waterways, Environment Southland needs to start that process all over again – before the current plan even has a chance to begin to effect its intended changes.
It is like putting the first coat of paint on a house, and then bulldozing the house before the final coat because it doesn't look good enough yet. Many more millions of dollars will disappear into redoing planning processes and consultants.
Imagine if we could put that money into actual on-the-ground improvements instead!
The vast majority of New Zealanders will never read the detailed regulations, but there are two key elements that we should all be aware of.
The first is a "Compulsory Value" for Ecosystem Health, which every regional council must deliver on.
This requires freshwater ecosystems that are "suitable to sustain the indigenous aquatic life expected in the absence of human disturbance or alteration".
That's scary stuff whether you're rural or urban, particularly as it is a compulsory bottom line.
Despite the best intentions of this policy, the only way we could come close to delivering on this aspiration is by depopulating Southland. Even then, human impacts would remain including flood banks, introduced species, land reclamation and more.
The second major shift comes through the new hierarchy for the management of freshwater.
To paraphrase, the stated objective of the National Policy Statement prioritises: 1- the health of the freshwater and its ecosystems, 2 - the health needs of people (drinking water), and finally 3 -the social, economic and cultural wellbeing of people and communities.
Obviously, the environment and human drinking water are important. But in practice it is a seismic shift from current system. It means that the health of the water and its ecosystems are given greater weighting, irrespective of any potential economic and social benefits or costs.
This is all about values. We all want beautiful waterways, and we want our children and grandchildren to have them too.
There are plenty of ways to improve the impact of our lives on our environment and they don't all require the slash and burn of our economy to achieve improvements.
The Government has consistently told us that there will be time to work towards the aspirations. But these aspirational hurdles are now regulations that regional councils are required to give effect to, with many of the specific rules applying now.
Once councils have implemented their plans, we'll be forced to achieve water quality standards over short timeframes and regardless of cost, and we will all be paying the bill.
How will our communities survive? Perhaps life in future New Zealand is only for the wealthy.
