by Russel Norman
Federated Farmers has been talking about water storage. Now it’s true that there is a key role for water storage schemes to assist agricultural production. But there are downsides to water storage too. Water storage schemes can block access for fish and eels up and down rivers. The storage can destroy habitat that goes underwater.
This can result in loss of ecological values and recreational values. But Fish and Game put out a release today that points out that there are further issues.
Assuming the catchment’s current in-stream ecological and recreational amenity values are retained, fish passage is provided and provision is made for adequate flushing flows, there still remains the crucial issue of the adverse effects of intensified agriculture utilising the stored water
These adverse downstream effects are well understood, are cumulative and can be significant. Increased irrigation and intensification means increased stocking rates and fertiliser applications, which result in increased effluent and nutrient run-off into rivers, streams and aquifers that are often already suffering reduced flows. The cumulative effects of large scale irrigation on the recreational, ecological, community and cultural values of down stream waterways can be major.
It is intensification that is driving the destruction of water quality in rivers, lakes and beaches around the country. As people go to their summer holidays they will find their favourite swimming and fishing spots are even further degraded. We can’t keep intensifying.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Tue, December 16th, 2008
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Frog
If the requirement were to put any unused water back into the stream just as we got it, there’d be no problem with agriculture. It is positively sinful (from an Engineers perspective) that a country that gets as much rain as this one gets, has such problems with water supply. This isn’t just about farming, it is about every aspect of living here and we have hardly seen any of what Gaia has in store for us once our abuse is noticed.
We can do a lot better than we do, but to do so we have to treat our water a lot better than we do. We can do that and store water and make better use of it… or we can build an aqueduct to move it from the West coast to the East coast. Which is (I think) going to be a lot more expensive.
Why is it always the “don’t build anything” meme that seems to get echoed here? It gets my teeth grinding.
BJ
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BJ, Hydrologicly you can only compare NZ with Hawaii or Florida. Almost all the other states have radically different rainfall patterns from New Zealand. The combinations of climate and type of agriculture in those states rends to mitigate the downstream effects that drive the “don’t build anything” meme in this country. We don’t have freeze/thaw cycle to reduce runoff contamination in winter, we don’t have a tornado alley delivering frequent summer thunderstorms to flash-flood the contamination out of the rivers. We don’t irrigate primarily for horticulture and grain growing as is the case in the California, although that was what happened in Canterbury until quite recently.
Just one of those areas of life where NZ is quite unique and you may need to experience it to fully understand it. If you’re living in the Wellington region then you’re not experiencing a typical NZ climate. Spend some time in Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay and you’ll get an inkling of how dramatic the west coast/east coast climate contrast can be. If you visited Hawaii you may have noticed the dramatic rainfall difference between the northwest and southeast fauna.
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“It is positively sinful (from an Engineers perspective) that a country that gets as much rain as this one gets, has such problems with water supply.”
Agree entirely – and well said…as well as learning from similar climes elsewhere, I feel we have a lot to learn from Australia (almost totally unlike our water wealth) where this issue has been a ‘life and death’ matter – oftimes tragic, for the last ten years now.
It would serve us well to take a study group there – Farmers, appropriate Govt Officers etc (and all Global Warming denyers, but they get to pay their own way).
There are dozens of different water reticulation schemes in place there, as well as stunning examples of what can go wrong (the Murray River for example).
After fours years living in the bush there – and no where near a water source – I learned how to catch and retain all my needs from rainfall. Knowledge itself is the most valuable thing…
regards Mark
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Russell
The sentence “we can’t keep intensifying” is meaningless.
Please don’t create verbs to try and frighten people. All it does is make them believe one of the leaders of the green movement (albeit part of the movement that is stretched deeply into the left extreme of left-right politics) is less than literate!
To determine is a word is a verb, just try conjugating it, as in
I intensify
You intensify
he/she intensifies
If (as here) it dousn’t seem like it makes any sense, think again about what you are trying to say and say it!
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Dave S
Your post illustrates your lack of understanding of some of the finer points of the English language. Try it with the verb “run” instead:
I run
You run
He/she runs
We run
We are running
We can keep running
We can’t keep running.
I intensify
You intensify
He/she intensifies
We intensify
We are intensifying
We can keep intensifying
We can’t keep intensifying
No problem!
And the post is by Russel with one “l”, not “Russell”.
Trevor.
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An aquaduct to take water from the South Island West Coast to the East Coast would be a really impressive feat. We have only recently managed to build a road that can survive the area, with the construction of the Otira viaduct. See http://www.apoec.org.nz/viaduct.htm
There is a reason we call them the Southern Alps!
New Zealand is a geologically young country. Our mountains haven’t had the rough edges worn off them – that is still going, and a fair bit of that ends up in our rivers. A little while ago, we lost a significant chunk off our tallest mountain Mt Cook. It used to be 12,349 feet. It is now 12,316 feet – 33 feet less. Building anything permanent in that area is a challenge.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aoraki/Mount_Cook
Trevor.
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Dave S
Interesting how a while back you suggest NZ population increasing to 16M. This distant horizon underlies the largely unchallenged policy of our business lobbyists who float on top of the scum. With this sort of approach we will need intensification and nuclear power (or whatever).
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trevor
What is it you are intensifying?
Run is a verb
Intensity is not!
Go get a degree
To help you,
In grammar, ‘intensify’ is termed a “transitive verb” in that it acts on a noun to transit its state. i.e. it is incomplete without a direct object (noun), as in the following examples:
INCOMPLETE
The shelf holds.
COMPLETE
The shelf holds three books and a vase of flowers.
INCOMPLETE
The committee named.
COMPLETE
The committee named a new chairperson.
INCOMPLETE
The child broke.
COMPLETE
The child broke the plate.
INCOMPLETE
Society intensified.
COMPLETE
Society intensified its protest against global warming
OK Now?
Next
jh
If by “a while back” you mean yesterday, then yes, I’m that person! I’m not sure what either the horizon you are referring to is or what policies are unchallenged; however, I do resent being inferred to as “scum”, particularly as I have never referred to your lineage.
Anyway, to get to your point, WHAT WILL NEED INTENSIFICATION?
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Russel
My apologies for referring to you as Russell russel, it will not happen again
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Whoops, russel should be Russel – mea didgitum culpa!
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If by “a while back” you mean yesterday, then yes, I’m that person! I’m not sure what either the horizon you are referring to is or what policies are unchallenged; however, I do resent being inferred to as “scum”, particularly as I have never referred to your lineage.
…………
What I’m saying is that while we don’t have an official population policy it is (it seems) part of the lexicon of the business lobby that the population is to keep on expanding but we aren’t supposed to think about it too much just shrug it off as normal and not count the costs.
Scum is what floats to the top (“a filmy layer of extraneous or impure matter that forms on or rises to the surface of a liquid or body of water”). The analogy was meant to be with those who live on top floors, headlands farmlets with nice vistas compared to those who look at walls (those who share the benefits and not the costs).
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Yeah I know its off topic but I found this most interesting.
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2008/12/letter-to-keith-locke.html
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Boring article from Trevor, as usual. Half truths and innuendo. the same crap the police use to justify spying on whole groups rather than individuals, as their mandate suggests.
If there was even the remotest effort by the police to target suspect individuals, and then let it go when they found nothing, I would have some patience. However, wholesale targeting of groups is, in fact, a Stasi tactic.
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What parts are untrue Frog?
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Kieth Locke attacked the police over the raids on the Urewera camps etc. He was in a good position to know or at least find out what is what but he was partial to covering it up. The police affidavit was available to anyone with computer skills and curiosity and when you put the conversions in their context the comments by the solicitor general (“very disturbing activities”(?)) make sense.
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I think the main point here, Frog, was that the police’s SIG were given a lot of money to go after terrorists and either failed to find any, or ddn’t even try, and went after activists instead.
I blame state-run education. Our history curriculum is so lacking that confused police officers don’t even know that it was Greenpeace that was the target of NZ’s last incidence of terrorism, not the perpetrators of it.
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I did mention that it would be more expensive to run the water over the mountains than to conserve/save/re-use the water that is already on the Eastern side. I KNOW I said that. I meant it too…
At the same time, I would have to point out that “impressive feats of engineering” are part of what make us a civilization rather than a bunch of apes.
respectfully
BJ
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From Water Storage to Terrorism – that quickly.
So NZ is not one of the oldest land masses above sea level?
I (perhaps mistakenly) thought that Scientists agreed NZ was indeed one of the earth’s oldest Land Masses – based largely on the only (non swimming) descendant of the Dinosaur living here.
The Tuatara was that unique native, had survived for a millenia and never been submerged lives on.
One of the reasons for the theory anyway – i will await enlightenment from educated worthies…
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There ain’t nothing worse than a grammar freak.
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“# Kevyn Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 11:59 am
There ain’t nothing worse than a grammar freak.”
Particularly ironic when he then says:
“If (as here) it dousn’t seem like it makes any sense, think again about what you are trying to say and say it!”
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You have my support bjchip – but suspect on this website my support does you more harm than good
Engineers and economist have a lot of common ground to fruitfully work together on.
Keep up the work – sometimes good ideas get implemented.
Sometimes – i’m still an optimist, just a little jaded from so many bad business cases.
Regards
WWHS
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Canterbury is not running out of water. The water is running out of Canterbury!
We seem to have become paralysed over certain engineering works.
At present the Canterbury Regional Council seems to prefer using energy to pump water out of aquifers (which lowers the water table) rather than build a few dams and use aqueducts and pipes to let gravity deliver.
They seem to think dams are unnatural. Have they ever considered how many alpine lakes are formed behind natural landslides which formed natural dams?
And does anyone suggest we dismantle Karapiro dam because of its adverse effect on the environment?
We have to set a few priorities. The sure way to become a Banana republic is to let the BANANAs rule. (BANANAs – BUILD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ANYWHERE NEAR ANYTHING!
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NZ is one of the youngest land masses above sea level.
That is why it is rough rather than smooth.
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Will we need the Central Plains water scheme with dairy prices falling?
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2008/12/16/video-dairy-b ubble-has-burst/
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There’s always the possibility of a blind fault under the gravels of the Canterbury Plain.
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Actually the rivers that drain the foothills run out of water and you know what that means………. no fishing!
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Dave S said:
“Go get a degree”
Why? I would just put it with the others. (And you would be surprised what paper I did on the side.)
However I may have misunderstood your objection to “We can’t keep intensifying”. I did’t realise that you were objecting to the lack of an object. Russel was speaking about intensification of stocking levels on dairy farms/irrigation/agriculture, i.e. the same activities that had already been established as the objects of intensification by the article that he quoted.
This is a blog. It is a written form of communication which is much like spoken communication. It is not a formal acedemic essay or novel. The rules of English are more relaxed.
Trevor.
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jh: you mean that there’s always the possibility of another blind fault under the gravels of the Canterbury Plain.
We already know of several.
Trevor.
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Why not give Fed Farmers the water that Meridian’s resource consents are forcing it to spill from Roxburgh and Tekapo?
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