Polluters agree on clean river targets

BY MICHAEL FORBES

Last updated 05:00 20/07/2010

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Leading polluters of the Manawatu River will sign a commitment to reduce pollutants and toxic waste pouring into it.

But deciding how or when that is achieved is still some way off, which has left some questioning whether the commitment means anything.

The poor state of the river has been a talking point since research from the Cawthron Institute last year showed that – under a system measuring oxygen changes in water – the river topped a list of 300 across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

For the past six months a forum of environmental groups, industry and agriculture representatives, council staff and community leaders has been working to find a solution.

That group has now written a collective agreement that sets out an overall goal to make the Manawatu safe for humans and animals, without harming the region's economy.

It centres around the development of an action plan for improvements, expected to be developed by March next year and implemented four months later.

In all, 17 parties have agreed the wording of the Manawatu River Leaders Accord and each will ratify it before publicly signing the document in August.

But the accord does not commit signatories to binding targets of reduced river pollution. Instead, it commits them to a plan that will establish "recommended" targets and time frames for improvements.

Horizons Regional Council chief executive Michael McCartney admitted the public might interpret that as "just words on paper". But the act of getting the river's main stakeholders to find some form of common ground was not to be understated.

"We're a lot further down the path than what we were when some of these groups were at loggerheads six months ago."

Rather than being a binding agreement, the action plan would probably complement the "bottom-line" regulations set out in Horizon's One Plan environmental management document, he said.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said voluntary measures, such as the Fonterra Clean Streams Accord, were not tough enough to enforce real change. There was a danger that this accord, with its "recommended" targets, could follow the same path.

"The idealist in me supports these groups coming together to find common ground but the pragmatist in me knows that we need environmental standards and regulations that have weight."

He was wary of Federated Farmers, which was still "fighting tooth and nail" to prevent the adoption of national waterways rules.

Federated Farmers dairy chairman Lachlan McKenzie said the organisation was committed to cleaning up the Manawatu. But he stopped short of saying regulation was the answer.

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"We recognise that everything in life is regulated to a certain degree, but we think good management practice could be a form of regulation."

SIGNATORIES TO THE ACCORD

Federated Farmers

New Zealand Pharmaceuticals

DB Breweries

Iwi and hapu from along Manawatu River

Conservation Department

Manawatu District Council

Fonterra

Palmerston North City Council

Destination Manawatu