Backdown on water rules for Manawatu

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Horizons Regional Council has backed down on its push for strict environmental regulation of farmers as a way to clean up Manawatu's waterways.

Council officers no longer wish to make intensive farming a controlled activity, which would have forced all such farmers to obtain consent for the nitrates escaping through their soil into rivers and streams.

Federated Farmers had previously criticised such a move, saying those who could not afford the consents would have to run fewer stock and suffer the financial blow.

The council now proposes keeping intensive farming as a permitted activity but introducing a nitrate-loss "limit" which farmers will have to meet, otherwise consent will be required.

Horizons planning and regulatory group manager Greg Carlyon said the limit would be between 20kg and 30kg of nitrate per hectare each year.

Dairy farming, irrigated sheep and beef, horticultural and cropping are all considered "intensive" because of their high level of nitrate loss. Horizons expects about 60 per cent of its farmers to already meet the requirements.

The back-down from blanket regulation has been criticised by farmers who say there should be no regulation, and ecologists who believe less regulation will hurt the region's struggling ecosystem.

The compromise follows nine weeks of submissions on the council's proposed One Plan – an all-encompassing environmental management policy for the region.

Water management – being debated at present – was thrust into the spotlight after a damning report from the Cawthron Institute found the Manawatu River was one of the most polluted in the Western world, measured on certain criteria.

Horizons rejects the findings but agrees the quality of its waterways needs improving.

Horizons chairman Garrick Murfitt said the council was dealing with resources for which there were competing uses that inevitably led to tensions.

"I believe this will take an enormous amount of pressure off those farmers worried about their futures in terms of environmental regulation, and will put to bed much of the scaremongering rampant amongst advocacy groups."

Federated Farmers Manawatu/Rangitikei president Gordon McKellar said imposing nitrate limits was a "watered-down" version of a resource consent.

The organisation favoured monitoring farmers for five years to determine their environmental impact before deciding who should be punished.

"We're not saying nothing should be done, but we believe Horizons have not taken the full economic impact of the One Plan into consideration all along."

Massey University ecologist Mike Joy said the state of the Manawatu River was already so bad that asking only half the region's farmers to cut back their nitrate loss would not solve the problem.

"You won't solve anything with this `softly, softly' approach."

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the concessions were a "real concern". "The Manawatu is already a river in crisis. About 90 per cent of all nitrate loss is through soil and if we really want to clean up this river then we have to move into a regulated environment."

Mr Murfitt expected the One Plan hearing panel to make its full decision by the end of June.

Meanwhile, Federated Farmers Dairy accused Horizons of being vindictive for its latest prosecution of the embattled Crafar family which led to a $45,000 fine for discharging effluent.

Dairy section chairman Lachlan McKenzie said the case should have been withdrawn by Horizons long before the fine was handed down.

WHAT HAS CHANGED?

Horizons no longer wants intensive farming to be considered a controlled activity. Instead, farmers will have to keep their nitrate loss under 20kg to 30kg per hectare to avoid needing resource consent. Horizons also wants to simplify the consent process, removing the need for consents for things such as farm bridges and culverts and basic track maintenance. These can cause sediment runoff.

- © Fairfax NZ News