A useful feature of the site is that it focuses on river catchments and that it provides information on water quality monitoring parameters such as turbidity, e- coli, total nitrogen and total phosphorus catchment by catchment.  It includes some basic trend information for each of the parameters and shows where council’s water quality monitoring sites are located.

The initiative of bringing together regional information onto one site is an excellent one because it will help ensure that water quality monitoring parameters are consistent across New Zealand and improve state of the environment reporting. Being able to compare apples with apples is a good start in assessing problems with water quality.

The site includes case studies for how councils are tackling land use and water quality issues around the country such as the Lake Taupō nitrogen trading and an erosion management programme in the Wairarapa hill country.

A useful next step would be to make the site interactive so that the public can easily report water pollution problems. The people that live beside our country’s rivers and streams can serve as the eyes and ears of regional and unitary councils who are often stretched for resources. It would be great to allow them to interact with councils through this website.

The regional councils also aim to include some coastal water quality information on the site, and I look forward to seeing how it progresses.

This week’s Environment Court decision that coal mining’s contribution to climate change cannot be considered during resource consent processes under the RMA reveals an urgent need for reform.

Bathurst Resources wants to mine over 4 million tonnes of coal on the protected Denniston Plateau, which will produce 11 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Solid Energy is currently angling for permission to take 4 million tonnes of coal from its proposed Mt. William mine, which will generate a similar amount of carbon dioxide once it is burned.

The fact that the RMA is unable to consider the effects on the climate of pushing at least 22 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere is madness. Mining coal is only once-removed from burning coal and yet our present RMA treats them as unrelated.

The Government has its head down a mineshaft in relation to climate change given this gap in the RMA and also its failure to rein in its SOE, Solid Energy, with its mining plans at Mt William.

A 2004 amendment to the RMA, which we opposed, restricts decision makers to considering only “the effects of climate change” on such activities, not the other way around.

The fact that our legislation that deals with environmental management cannot deal with the most profound environmental issue facing the planet – the changing climate – is nonsensical.

On Saturday, I’ll be attending a rally, organised by Restore the Christchurch Cathedral and led by the Wizard, outside the Anglican Church’s Christchurch synod meeting. We are gathering from 8.15 am for a silent vigil and then for a rally from 10.30am outside St Christopher’s Church on Avonhead Road. The Wizard is leading another rally on Sunday outside the Canterbury Museum at noon.

The Restore the Christchurch Cathedral group have also launched an online petition calling for the restoration of the Cathedral.

ChristChurch Cathedral has long been more than a church. It is a city icon and major landmark.  It has sheltered many people of many faiths and been a place of dialogue, of music, art and creativity as well as reflection and prayer. The wider public needs to be involved in decisions about its future. We haven’t been because of CERA’s draconian powers and the way in which it can override and undermine decisions normally made by councils.

Denying the public a voice is profoundly disempowering, both for heritage and recovery.

ChristChurch Cathedral is a Category 1 historic place designed by two architects celebrated for their Gothic revival buildings, George Gilbert Scott from the UK and New Zealander, Benjamin Mountfort. It is built largely of Canterbury stone, including large basalt blocks, a reminder that volcanoes as well as earthquakes have shaped our landscapes. It is a crucial part of the city’s built heritage. With the Arts Centre, the Canterbury Provincial Chambers and the Canterbury Museum it forms a precinct of Victorian Gothic Revival buildings.

ChristChurch Cathdral and Cathedral Square before the earthquakes

In any other part of New Zealand, the demolition of a Category 1 historic building would almost certainly involve a publicly notified resource consent application under the RMA with the  public able to make submissions and if necessary, appeal the Council’s decision to the Environment Court.

The emergency period post quakes is long gone. Yet CERA’s powers continue to throttle democracy and deny community and public involvement in virtually all significant decisions about our place and our city of Christchurch.   Who makes the crucial decisions, and how and why is increasingly opaque. Since Minister Brownlee’s “old dungers” comment,  the public have been shut out and CERA has facilitated the destruction of Christchurch’s heritage character and identity.

International architects, engineers, stonemasons and organisations are offering their expertise, advice and funding support to help restore ChristChurch Cathedral. Engineers say that the Cathedral can be made safe and restored at a cost that is a lot less than the $100 million figure previously quoted by the Bishop.

Making safe and rebuilding the Cathedral would contribute to the city’s recovery. It would use the best skills of architects, artisans, stonemasons, engineers, fund raisers and many others from New Zealand and abroad.  It would show what we can achieve, rather than want we can’t.  It would be a project which would signify recovery far more than any cardboard edifice.

Allowing demolition crews and their diggers to make another blank and empty space in the city’s heart – Cathedral Square – would add to the ugly emptiness of the sites of the former Warner’s and Press buildings. It would impede recovery by causing more loss, and further destruction of memory and our sense of place.

Restoration will take time. Yet what’s the rush?  The  construction of Barcelona’s world renowned Sagrada Familia started in 1882. It was not consecrated until 2010 and is not expected to be completed until 2026, a century after the death of its architect Antoni Gaudi. Yet it is a World Heritage site used, visited and celebrated by thousands each year.

CERA needs to hit the pause button now on the demolition of ChristChurch Cathedral and other heritage buildings. We have lost so much already. There must be public discussion about options to retain the Cathedral and other buildings.

We can rebuild a progressive, beautiful and sustainable city. Knowing and celebrating our past helps creates a strong foundation for the future.

An online petition asking CERA to stop the destruction of Christchurch heritage buildings has also been set up. It calls for engineers, heritage architecture specialists, heritage groups and the citizens of Christchurch to have more time and a say in the fate of remaining buildings in danger of demolition.  You can add your voice to ours.

As part of our Dirty Rivers and Lakes Tour I was in Hawke’s Bay to visit the site of the proposed Ruataniwha dam and irrigation reservoir (more about that in the next post). With no rain for several days and the Waipawa River running clear, Fish and Game’s invitation to try fly fishing was too good to miss.
The Waipawa River has its headwaters in the Ruahine Range, inland of Napier and Hastings. Downstream of where we were fishing, the Waipawa joins and contributes much of the flow to the Tukituki River – one of New Zealand’s most popular trout fishing rivers.

Learning to cast with Dave Hern of Fishing and Shooting Outfitters on the Waipawa River

Waipawa’s trout were safe from with this novice learning how to cast. Skilled fishers like local fishing and hunting guide Dave Hern mailto:davehern@xtra.co.nz make it look elegant and effortless– a sinuous arm movement and the line arcs forward so that the fly lands on the water directly upstream of the trout to tempt it out from behind the boulder or the cover where it has been lurking. My efforts were far from elegant, despite Dave’s excellent tuition and encouragement.

On Dave’s third or fourth cast, a flash of silver in the water and a bent rod showed a trout had mouthed his fly before thinking better of it.

The Ruataniwha Dam is proposed for a steep gorge on a nearby river the Makaroro River.  Like the Waipawa it used by fishers.

A dam would reduce the gravel and sediment which nourish the riverbed, it would replace the freshes (small excess flows) and floods and the variable flows which a healthy river needs to turn over the gravels, flush out the sediment and create habitat for aquatic insects on which the trout feed.

If we are serious about a clean green economy agriculture intensification is not the way forward. Instead of investing in reducing nutrient leaching and runoff including through riverbank planting and wetland creation – protecting our waterways not destroying them.

National’s claims that we need a major restructuring of local government to reduce rates bills, control council debt and make local government more efficient ignore the facts.  These include that rates are relatively stable as a proportion of household income and are falling as a percentage of property values, and that debt is often a way of spreading the costs of new infrastructure over several generations.

And many councils have already moved to trim their spending in the draft budgets and plans now being released for public comment.

National wants to restrict councils to “providing… local infrastructure, public services and regulatory functions at the least possible cost to households and businesses.”  We have seen what happens when councils reduce their regulatory costs – leaky homes !

Narrowing councils’ statutory purpose to focus on “roads, rats, and rubbish”, will limit councils’ ability to fund social, cultural and environmental programmes.

Yet it is services such as swimming pools, parks and gardens, art galleries, museums, community events centres and public transport which help make our cities and towns accessible and pleasant places to live.

For more than 70 years Christchurch City Council has provided rental accommodation for people needing affordable housing. It owns and manages more than 2,640 rental units.

The Government’s edict that “councils should not try to replace services provided by the private sector” means that in National’s brave new world providing social housing may be beyond Council’s legal powers. This will drive up the rental costs and reduce choice for tenants if private landlords no longer have to compete with cost effective public housing.

Porirua City Council is considering a marketing plan to attract 10,000 more residents and boost the local economy. Such expenditure risks being disallowed  under the new legislation to be introduced in May.

The Local Government Act 2002 defines the purpose of local government as: “to enable democratic local decision making and action by, and on behalf of communities;“ and “to promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of communities, in the present and for the future.”

The Act reflects an international awareness that decisions should be made at the lowest practical level.   As the then Minister of Local Government, Sandra Lee said in 2002, the Act was about “empowering New Zealanders within their local communities to exercise greater control over their lives and over the environments in which they live.”

National/ Act’s proposed changes go against that.  They will provide a basis for super city style councils which are more remote from, and less accessible to citizens and ratepayers. They will allow much greater intervention and influence by Wellington Ministers, cutting across local democracy and decision making.

The Minister of Local Government will have much greater powers to appoint Crown managers, observers and commissioners enabling the Minister to dominate and interfere with councils against local residents’ aspirations.

Any council choosing to take a more independent line and fund programmes which support their community’s social and cultural wellbeing would risk having observers appointed to report back to the Minister on their “misbehaviour.”

Dave Ritchie, programme director of Tai Poutini Polytechnic’s highly regarded outdoor leadership course had organised the sea kayaks. Other paddlers included Geoff Button from Tai Poutini, Dean Kelly from Fish and Game, and Dave Mason from Ngāti Wae Wae.

Framed by Mt Te Kinga and the Hohonu Range and fringed by regenerating kahikatea forest, the lake is a jewel in the West Coast crown of spectacular natural areas.

Unsurprisingly Lake Brunner is popular for fishing, kayaking, yachting and boating with an increasing number of upmarket holiday homes at the Moana and Te Kinga settlements.

Appearances are deceptive. The picture postcard views we enjoyed during our paddle disguise a steady decline in lake water quality over the last 20 years. The danger is people may accept the current state as the new normal.

Since 1992, concentrations of nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus have increased while water clarity has declined. Monitoring reports by the West Coast Regional Council note obvious signs of eutrophication (nutrient enrichment). Nutrients are bad news for rivers because they can lead to the growth of algae.

No surprises about the cause – agricultural intensification including more dairying in the lake’s catchment. Stormwater and septic tank seepage from lakeside settlements also need addressing.

National’s recent announcement of $8 million in grants for “clean up” programmes for five lake and river systems seek to bandage the wound without tackling one of the major causes of the injury – the failure to limit dairying expansion and increasing cow numbers and fertiliser use in sensitive catchments such as Lake Brunner/Kotuku Whakaoho.

Rather than spending millions of dollars of public funds in cleaning up pollution caused by agricultural land use, we need to control farming as a land use.

Central government is failing to provide leadership through strong national policies and environmental standards under the RMA. Consistent nationwide rules which keep stock out of streams would be a good start, so would standards which limit nitrogen and phosphorus inputs.

In the Rotorua/Te Arawa Lakes region tens of millions of dollars are being spent on remediation. Councils are facing the reality of now having to revert dairy land back to less intensive land uses in order to improve water quality.

We can avoid that problem if we recognise there are limits to growth, both in cow numbers and the amount of land which can be farmed intensively in sensitive catchments such as Lake Brunner.

The National Government is failing to do this. It delivered a weak and toothless National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPS) last year. An independent think tank has since released a report which says the NPS will not result in the changes needed to halt and reverse New Zealand’s trend in water quality decline.

We need clean water rules from the Government without delay, so that Lake Brunner avoids the algal blooms and weed growth which have plagued enriched North Island lakes such as Lake Rotoiti.

Improved land management by local farmers around Lake Brunner in recent years is welcome. One lakeside farm has a “herd home” for stock shelter particularly during winter. This means there is less likelihood of stock pugging muddy pastures and sending lots of sediment into the nearby Crooked River and the lake after heavy rain.

The continuing decline in the lake’s water quality shows that the voluntary efforts by a few are not enough. Comprehensive action by all 22 farms in the lake catchment requires effective national and regional rules.

Heading home after the paddle, just a few kilometres from the lake, we saw that another local farmer had bulldozed and cleared streamside native shrubs leaving bare muddy banks. The next rainfall will sluice sediment into the stream. Settling on the gravels and cobbles on the streambed, it will smother the crevices which invertebrates and fish rely on and destroy their habitat.

Let’s protect Lake Brunner with clean water rules now.

I’m heading down to the Denniston Plateau this weekend for Forest and Bird’s BioBlitz of the area, as part of their wider campaign to Save the Denniston Plateau. The Denniston Plateau is a upland wonderland of wetlands, streams and ancient rock, home to many unique native species including the great spotted kiwi, green geckos, ground weta, bonsai rata and the giant carnivorous land snails Powelliphanta. New species are continuously being discovered in this rare and special ecosystem within New Zealand which is on public conservation land. It also happens to be sitting on a large deposit of coal that an Australian mining company Bathurst Resources would like to get their hands on. Bathurst have a resource consent to rip open the landscape with a 200ha open pit coal mine, similar to what has happened on the neighbouring Stockton Plateau. The Environment Court has yet to hear appeals against the granting of RMA consents.

The BioBlitz this weekend is a gathering of pollination biologists, botanists, bryophyte experts, herpetologists, ornithologists and invertebrate specialists, as well as a hardy bunch of volunteers. Teams will head out onto the plateau, both day and night, to survey blocks of the area and record all the species of animal life encountered.

Despite Govenrment promises during the Schedule 4 debate to have public consultation on mining applications affecting conservation land, Minister Kate Wilkson has shrugged off requests for this to happen at Denniston.

Incredibly, local Department of Conservation staff have been forbidden from attending the BioBlitz, even in a private capacity! That is, staff of a government department with a mandate to ensure conservation of New Zealand’s lands are forbidden from participating in this conservation survey.

[Updated note: The Department has subsequently allowed staff to participate.]

DOC laments on their own website:

“As a result of major habitat loss in the past, many Powelliphanta populations are now restricted to tiny pockets of native bush, where they have a precarious toehold on existence.”

It’s entirely possible that new species of giant carnivorous land snails and earthworms will be discovered this weekend on Denniston Plateau. But if the Government continues to stop DOC from doing their job, and Bathurst Resources push ahead with their plans to mine such a unique ecosystem, further new species may well become extinct before we even get to discover them.

Milan Ruka introducing Russel Norman and Eugenie Sage to the dirty dairy-polluted Wairua River near Whangarei. Photo: SNPA/Malcolm Pullman

The muddy brown waters of the Wairua show our mistreatment of rivers and our gross carelessness about their health and our own.

Green Party Co-leader Russel Norman and I paddled a seven km stretch of the Wairau River and Waipau Stream west of Whangarei to support the work of Northland river kaitiaki, Millan Ruka. Millan’s efforts to protect the north’s waterways were earlier this month reported by Close Up. Helped by Hapū Te Urirori, Millan has been patrolling the Wairua and other rivers in his flat bottomed river boat, Kiorewai.  Millan has documented numerous breaches of the Clean Streams Accord and local farmers’ failure to keep their stock out of streams and implement even the most basic riparian management.

Russel Norman inspecting poor farming practices on the river banks and catchment area. Photo: SNPA/Malcolm Pullman

Paddling down the Wairua we saw plenty of fencing dividing paddocks perpendicular to the river but little fencing along the banks to keep stock out of the river. We saw a large natural seep and spring on the riverbank, heavily pugged by stock so that the clear spring water carried mud and cow dung directly into the river.

There were plenty of Fonterra “It starts here” signs on farm gates but scant evidence of river care starting alongside milk making. Instead, there was areas of closely cropped grass, muddy, trampled banks weeping silt, cows eyeing us curiously and even a dairy farm raceway and effluent pond sited on top of the riverbank with no buffering vegetation.  Rain would flush dung and sediment from the race directly into the river.

Ruining rivers is not an acceptable consequence of dairying and farm intensification, however much it increases GDP.

Millan’s careful and detailed reports to Fonterra and Northland Regional Council have led to no remedial or enforcement action. This underlines the shortcomings of the voluntary approach and National’s laissez faire attitude to rivers.  We have a plethora of different permissive approaches by regional and unitary councils and scant action.

We urgently need stronger national policy under the RMA and national environmental standards to get cows out of creeks, stop further intensification in sensitive catchments and achieve an industry wide commitment to planted riparian setbacks.

Eugenie Sage and Russel Norman taking a closer look at the damage done by bad farming practices. Photo: SNPA/Malcolm Pullman

Despite its burden of silt and elevated levels of e-coli, nitrogen and phosphorus, there is hope for the Wairua.

At the start of the paddle we released thousands of tuna/eel elvers into the river. Hapū Te Parawhau, Ngāti Hau and Te Urioroi have saved several million elvers from being shredded in the Wairua power scheme by catching and releasing them.

It is one of nature’s miracles that these tiny elvers, around 5 cm long and as fine as a strand of knitting wool, have been carried by currents from near Tonga, where their parents spawned, to the mouth of the Kaipara Harbour and then swum up the Wairua River.

Making space for nature would allow another miracle on the Wairua.  Individual old man totara and remnant kahikatea, puriri and kowhai trees survive in a narrow strip along sections of riverbank. They are reminders of what was and what could be in this ancient riverine landscape.

With cattle having free access there is no regeneration. When the older trees die there will be no saplings to replace them.  However, if a generous setback was fenced off, nature would recreate a protective and dramatic river corridor.

Milford Dart Ltd wants to build a commercial coach tunnel between Glenorchy and the Hollyford Valley under Fiordland and Mt Aspiring National Parks. Riverstone Holdings Ltd proposes a “get on/get off” boat/unimog/monorail/bus scheme from Queenstown to Te Anau Downs and then Milford.

You can help protect Te Wāhi Pounamu the South West World Heritage Area from the monorail by making a submission to DoC by 19 March. Check out Forest and Birds submission guide (Submissions on the Dart proposal have closed already)

Mavora Lakes - Photo Credit Kiwihausen - CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In wanting to pack more tourists through Milford Sound more quickly both companies forget that what makes Milford precious is its remoteness,  beauty and the fact that it isn’t five minutes down the road.

The journey to Milford around the lakes, past mountain ranges and through ancient forests is a part of the experience.  The journey and the landscapes are something to savour, rather than speed through in a wearying 12 hour dash from Queenstown to Milford and back again.

The monorail project is a major concern partly because DoC’s initial report suggests its impacts can be avoided, remedied or mitigated. This conclusion defies belief given the scale of the earthworks and forest clearance involved and the area’s high ecological and landscape values which feature in this Forest and Bird video.

For the monorail Riverstone Holdings Ltd wants legal control over a 200 metre wide and 43 km long swathe of conservation land.  This would be much cheaper for the company than negotiating rights to use private land.

Snowdon Forest

The company’s promotional video features a snazzy monorail speeding through the forest. It doesn’t show the tens of thousands of beech trees that would be felled and the major earthworks on some steep slopes needed to construct the 43 km monorail track, maintenance track, bridging and power lines.

We can grow our tourism industry by encouraging visitors to stay longer (breaking the journey from Queenstown by staying overnight at Te Anau for example). Then they can walk, smell and enjoy the forests of the Kiwiburn and Upukerora Valleys rather than seeing them flash past a sealed and sound proofed monorail compartment.

Or they can enjoy a spectacular mountainbike ride (accordion warning) on the gravel road from Lake Wakatipu past the jewel like Mavora Lakes to Te Anau. (and eventually around Eyre Mountains) If bus congestion at Milford is a problem then proposals for a park and ride scheme from Te Anau using shared buses deserve further investigation.

As members of the Police, Fire Services and other service personnel read aloud the names of everyone who had died it was enormously sad thinking of what each person meant to their family, workmates, friends and communities. But a strong and positive energy to guide the rebuild was also obvious, such as in the talented young musicians of the Linwood College Orchestra, and in a short film clip of Christchurch residents saying what they liked about the city and what they were looking forward to.

It has been a long, intense twelve months. The daily pain of loss, of healing injured bodies and minds, seemingly endless emails and phone calls to EQC and insurance companies about repairing or relocating homes and businesses, and long commutes on car clogged roads can make life difficult. The public’s vision for Christchurch which emerged through the City Council’s innovative “Share An Idea” Expo and consultation was of a beautiful, connected and sustainable city which people would want to live, work in and enjoy. As we navigate streetscapes with expanses of grey concrete and twisted reinforcing steel where heritage buildings once stood, a beautiful city seems hard to imagine.

Real progress in rebuilding Christchurch will occur if we keep faith with that public vision, keep alive the memories of those whom we lost, and if the community is given a much greater say in decisions on the rebuild.

Minister Brownlee’s irritation and impatience with the Christchurch Council creates the impression (deliberate or otherwise) that the Council is not competent, and that further Government intervention may be required.

While the City Council has come in for some deserved criticism its achievements post ‘quake are significant. It has delivered a forward looking plan for the central city in record time and it continues to competently provide a wide range of services  that people expect from their councils from libraries to wastewater (albeit at a scale reduced by the quakes).

The pressure being applied to Christchurch City Council relates to the Government’s concerns over how the council will meet the $1 billion share for the cost of rebuilding imposed on it by the Government.

One way of raising this revenue – and a way no doubt favoured by many in the current Government – is for the council to sell off assets.

Brownlee has openly stated that the Council must have a better plan than “putting up rates or borrowing a lot more money.”

While the Government denies it is pressuring the council to sell assets – “discussions” between Treasury and CERA officials and senior Council management suggest otherwise.  Then there’s the fear that Government could “do an ECan” and replace elected City councillors with Government appointed commissioners free to begin a process of asset sales.

Red Bus Ltd, Lyttelton Port Company, Orion and Christchurch airport are all assets owned by Canterbury citizens through their council. In the interests of Christchurch’s long term recovery, these strategic and revenue generating assets must not be sold.

The best prospect for Christchurch’s recovery must be to allow council to continue to prepare and consult the public on its draft annual plan and budget.  The Government should be looking at other ways of raising revenue.

An earthquake levy, of the type proposed by the Green Party, would raise $1 billion each year to contribute significantly to the earthquake bill.  An earthquake levy would assist central Government with the task of funding earthquake recovery.

Instead of looking at ways that all New Zealanders can help with the Christchurch rebuild the Government is pushing Christchurch residents – many who have just lost their homes – into a further financial crisis.

This week there is news from Taranaki that one of Fonterra’s new directors, David McLeod, also holds the position of chair of Taranaki Regional Council. Cr McLeod claims that should he retain the chairman’s position, he will declare his interest and stand aside when the regional council discusses matters involving Fonterra.

Regional councils make significant decisions about water management and land uses affecting water. When a regional council chair is also making key decisions about the direction of New Zealand’s largest corporation, there is a potential conflict of interest. Even if Cr McLeod does manage to keep his interests completely separate and stand aside from specific council business involving Fonterra, he is naïve to think that the public will not view his double involvement as creating a conflict of interest.

Regional council policies, plans and rules may affect Fonterra shareholders. Continuing as council chair risks creating a perception that the regional council will be a dairying-friendly environmental regulator.