by Russel Norman
60 Minutes did a pretty good job covering the freshwater issue tonight.
Interesting that Fonterra were willing to concede that they have made some pretty significant errors.
Mike Joy, as usual, was out there trying to get central and local govt to take the action needed. It was cool that he got a chance to share his passion for NZ native fish – I hope he got a few converts from the programme because we have AWESOME native fish.
Watching Alan Crafar in deep denial about his convictions for dirty dairying was extraordinary – ‘just one man’s opinion’ he reckons; true, but that one man was an Environment Court Judge. I wonder how he’ll respond if the judge orders a custodial sentence at the sentencing hearing on August 24 for Crafar’s latest set of water pollution convictions. And would Fonterra continue to take his milk or even cut the price they pay him for it as a penalty; and if not, what would you actually have to do to make Fonterra actually do something?
By the way, can anyone think think of a good reason to keep the weir across the Hutt River at Silverstream (near the sewerage overflow station)? It stops fish access up the river. Surely we should get rid of the thing….
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Mon, August 17th, 2009
Tags: Add new tag, native fish, water management, water quality
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Virtually all commercial Farming has a large carbon print…not just a little.
Yes separating sewage from public fresh water is a mark of civilzation – always has been hey?
One day we shall recognise strength in our diversity…blimey! but it’s Late.
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The 60 Minutes programme said, in essence, that the situation with our rivers, especially lowland rivers, continues to worsen. All of the effort that has gone into solving the problem of polluted water, whether it be from point source industrial, sewerage from towns or more significantly non-point leakage of effluent from farming, has only served to slow the damage a little. We have failed to manage the issue of pollution in our rivers. We are left with the remnants and that is being further destroyed by the ruminants. This is a sick joke. 100%Pure NZ is a sick joke. Fonterra’s claims that they will ‘deal with their own’ is b*llsh*it. It’s death by a thousand cuts but hey! the whitebait season has begun! Thousands of good New Zealaders are down at the water’s edge with their nets, scooping out their birthright – a feed of bait – hoorah! The numbers of native fishes that no longer figure in our thinking, lost because their habitat has gone – streams that now flow through kilometres of drains, swamps that have been drained for pasture – is astonishingly high. We are measuring the left-overs. And fishing them out for our plate. As for our own sh*t, which we still continue to flush into our waterways and seas – that tells you how we really regard fresh water.
Remember! Dilution is the Solution to Pollution! A society that believes that (and we do!) is f*cked!
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Russel said:
Watching Alan Crafar in deep denial about his convictions for dirty dairying was extraordinary
Watching Alan Crafar was like looking into our countries soul.
He’s doing what we’re doing.
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country’s
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Dairying – the backbone of our economy…
or the rectum?
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Not only are the practices infuriating, but so are the heavy amounts of subsidies that the large commercial farmers receive.
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# guide Says:
August 18th, 2009 at 8:28 am
> Not only are the practices infuriating, but so are the heavy amounts of subsidies that the large commercial farmers receive.
what subsidies are you referring to?
I would have thought the freedom to get away with polluting practices was actually the main form of subsidy New Zealand farmers got.
I suppose they are effectively subsidised thorugh the provision of roads and electricity wires that wouldn’t be economic to set up to some rural locations on a purely commercial basis, but I’m not sure thaere’s anything bad about those subsidies.
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The cities of Seattle probably know more about fish paths and managing fish routes than anyone.
they have a complex mix of fresh and salt water and a number of species and their economy if as focused around fishing as our is around pastoral farming.
The problem is that our reforms to Local Govt and the RMA over the last decades have dissolved focused authorities and merged them regional government tasked with integrated planning. Overseas experience demonstrates that this approach fails because conflicting goals within the organisation get resolved behind closed doors.
We need to establish Council controlled organisation with single focused tasks such as water management, catchment management and make them accountable. The model is wrong and needs to be fixed.
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Fonterra and the NZX are laying the ground work for turning Aotearoa’s main primary industry and income earner into a casino. The only way to deal with these people now is the same way Cadbury’s was dealt to – trash the brand far and wide, and hit the bottom line.
It riles the hell out of me that: we are now on the world stage telling 100+ countries that we might reduce our emissions by 10 percent provided other countries reduce theirs’ by more, then we have John Key planning to make “100% Pure” the country’s “master brand”, and now yet more evidence of pollution getting worse and Fonterra saying “trust us”.
No way is that a “rolling maul of iniatives” – its a rolling brawl on the sideline.
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Key is planning to make “100% Pure” the country’s “master brand” !!!
Are you serious???
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Let’s think about this for a while. There’s something not quite right about his plan. It’s a little ‘contestable’ for starters
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Would I lie to you, Greenfly?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/2705859/Key-seeks-expansion-of-100-Pure
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BliP – not for a moment, I’m sure, but..I’m stunned !!!
From your link I read,
Mr Key agreed there had to be integrity behind the 100% Pure New Zealand image
Mr Key may well agree, but if he’s going to peddle the concept of ’100% Pure’, he’s going to have to lie, unless he cleans up the rivers (for a start).
I DON’T SEE IT HAPPENING (but will pledge my eternal devotion if he does do it)
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100% pure has been a lie from the start and is a dreadful slogan and should be banned by the Advertising Standards Authority.
No air is pure. No water is pure. And what on earth is pure soil?
And I must admit to occasionally thinking impure thoughts.
Especially when I see slogans like 100% pure.
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You’d agree with “Pure Bullsh*t” then Owen?
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I don’t know what your are referring to.
If you are saying the 100% Pure slogan is pure bullsh*t then yes I do and always have done.
Purity is a dangerous concept. See my paper on the history of environmentalism in Germany back to the 19th century. Purity is a constant theme – purity of nature, purity of thought, mongrelisation of species, and finally of course racial purity.
Many taboos are related to the maintenance of purity. Women were deemed unclean because their menstruation was deemed “impure” and so on.
One of the difficulties facing modern Islam is that the third (I think) pillar of wisdom is purity of thought and belief, and any attempt at modernisation leaves the promoters open to challenges for lack of purity. Fortunately the other religions of the book do not emphasise purity so can be more flexible.
WE need to remember that the reasons mountain lakes are crystal clear is because they are deserts. . A murky river may support plentiful life.
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Owen said:
A murky river may support plentiful life.
Sure, might be …e.coli, crypto etc. a veritable banquet of organisms.
But you are right. There’s murk and there’s murk and crystal clear can be misleading. I don’t think Key can successfully use semantics to evade the obvious over our rivers, though I’m sure he’ll try. The Fonterra spin-team will help him out when it comes to choosing suitable words and phrases.
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And Fonterra must have some of the world’s best on their spin team – executrives from any other corporation that poisoned thousands of customers in China would be up against the wall by now.
Oh – hang on – they’re poisoning thousands of Kiwis now. DOH! A step behind them again. Drats.
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I reckon getting rid of the weir is a great idea. Kayakers could do without it as well. I hope you raise that Russell at your meeting on Wednesday in Upper Hutt. Keen for an update.
Walking around town (Wellington) you can’t help but notice the organisation behind the “water rights” campaign. ie the “its our right to use as much water as we feel like it” campaign. I would be interested to know the forces behind this campaign, if it is left wing driven, it is a classic example of how we so desperately need the third dimension to our politics of the left and right, the green dimension!
I am passionately for the installation of water meters in Wellington, along with a basic water usage allowance, because if we don’t sort things out the next river to be damned is the Whakatikei, a pristine tributary of the Hutt with fantastic ecological values.
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I think it’s 100% pure Bullsh!t !!!!
Dogs in our local river have been found dead last summer due to water poisoning in Canterburys rivers.
Twenty years ago that was unthinkable. Now that is downright scary.
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It’s everywhere and what’s worse is, it’s not the river situation that is the most worrying, it’s the groundwater that is bearing the brunt of the build-up of dangerous disease organisms. Where do you get your drinking water from?
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I did hear from a farming friend that dairy farming spent 25% more to produce 15% less milk. Just figures I know but a reality when farm systems come under pressure from droughts, lower payments for product and/or increasing interest rates. The question is what is the 25% being spent on?
Our water comes from springs above where we live and these springs a right in the middle of a farm. Contamination of the water does occur and the supply is chlorinated…yum yum.
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“What is the 25% spent on?”
Good question. NZ dairying is a ‘low input – low output’ system which may superficially seem bad but it is our strength. Our cows pruduse less compared to overseas but cost less to feed/house. Unfortunately we are heading more and more into expensive feeds such as palm kernel and other supplements. This is driven by profits of course which were plentiful when payout was high but not so now. However the cockies still have the extra numbers which were profitable to feed when payout was high but are now underfed and “it’s because of the drought”. However they wouldn’t be underfed if it were still profitable to buy feed for them.
Greenfly. Did you look at BJ’s link a few weeks ago re compeditive advantage in Huffington post I think… Dairying isn’t all bad, I think, although there are some huge leaps to make before it’s ‘not bad’. We’ll probably be processing grass to eat ourselves before we (as a nation) are dairying oragnically. But dairying ‘organically’ is one of NZ’s options for a brighter future. We would be able to produce less milk for more return. I have used the term organic loosely to include everything from welfare to effluent management.
Dairy farmers in general can be blamed for a lot. But farmers are/can be the solution.
I didn’t see the show but I refuse to believe that Crafar reflects our soul. He doesn’t even reflect the majority of Dairy farmers.
We (NZers) are discharging our waste into the waterways for historical reasons because of ignorance and lack of future planning. I would assume given Crafar’s previous convictions, he is not ignorant and has made a comercial decision with complete disregard for the environment. He does not reflect our soul. We are 7.5% Green and many many more green.
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Fin – nor are we New Zealanders ignorant of what we are doing. ‘Our’ decision to ‘keep a lid’ on the use of water ways as drains for our muck is as bad as that of Mr Crafar, imo. 7.5% of Mr Crafar’s soul might cringe at his actions, for all I know, but those actions are what count. For all that, I praise and value all those who do take action over the state of our water, where ever it may flow, but for all those who do, there is a mass that doesn’t.
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There is a school of thought in New Zealand that believes our way to success is through growing our economy and the government is leading the way. I think that a lot of farmers also believe this and are doing their best to make their businesses more productive. Gone are the days when two thousand acres supported more than one family, bought a new car, educated the kids at boarding school……etc. The costs of running the business have increased with debt servicing being a huge concern.
With all the pressures it is not suprising that costs that aren’t seen to contribute to income are given low priority by some.
Palm kernel could well be one of the cheapest options in terms of supplements for some as the dairy industry can make baleage and hay unaffordable for most sheep and beef farmers. Whether this is sustainably grown palm …..well who knows.
I guess the point is, we can become focussed on our business wanting them work and we are prepared to ignore some of the more disturbing aspects especially when we believe that the end justifies the means.
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Growing the economy is not necessarily a bad thing. Chances are that because of where it is at the moment, growth is imminent. -although I’m no economist. And I’ve heard economic growth is not mutually exclusive to ‘green growth’.
. Blind perhaps, more than ignorant. Even if Crafar refects part of our soul, ‘in all bad there’s some good… however tiny’.
Greenfly, I reckon we’re more ignorant than you give us credit
Isn’t it silly to tip a resource down the drain?
Or ignorance?
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Greenfly – your first post in this forum is absolutely awesome. My thoughts mirror exactly what you’ve posted. Cheers!
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