The technique is used to extract ‘unconventional’ oil and gas – that’s industry speak for sources of hydrocarbons that until recently were deemed too expensive or difficult to extract, but as the reality of peak oil kicks in the boundaries are being pushed further out.

The technique has been implicated in serious contamination of water supplies, and a correlation has been drawn between fracking and swarms of earthquakes in at least three American states.  It has been banned in France, is under investigation in other European states, and some parts of the US.

Fracking has happened in Taranaki, and has been proposed for other parts of the country, including the East Coast and Canterbury. The industry in New Zealand is staunchly defending the practice, with John Bay, the Chair of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association (PEPANZ), insisting that problems elsewhere were caused by ‘cowboys’, whom our government would not allow to operate here.

Given the present government’s enthusiasm for extraction of oil and gas, and their willingness to downplay the risks,  I’m less inclined to rely on them!  The fracking that has occurred in Taranaki was done without resource consents .   The Taranaki Regional Council only last month decided that perhaps there had better be a consenting process in future.

The Greens believe in evidence based policy.  Much of the evidence we are seeing indicates that fracking is  dirty, dangerous, and completely at odds with an intelligent 21st century economic or energy strategy. We want a halt to the practice until we see clear evidence that fracking really is safe, poses no threat to human health; our land, water or level of seismic activity; and that any benefits really could outweigh the costs.

I”m launching a petition that asks Parliament to initiate an independent investigation through the Office of  the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and for an immediate moratorium on the practice until or unless the PCE can give fracking  a clean bill of health. I hope you will sign it, and encourage others to do the same.

So download the petition [PDF] here and get people signing it!

The Chair of PEPANZ appears almost breathless with excitement as he seeks to fulfil the primary objective of his organisation, “to publicise, promote and advance the interests of the oil and gas exploration industry in New Zealand”.

The East Coast, we are told, has been only ‘lightly explored’.  In fact there have been  surveys done of the area’s onshore and offshore potential since at least the 1970s, and the likely existence of  reserves recognised, albeit in a number of discreet fields rather than one large single reserve. All that has changed is that in the face of declining reserves of cheap, readily accessible oil and gas elsewhere, the industry is moving to ‘frontier’ areas with  a much higher risk profile than would have been contemplated even a decade ago.

Apache we are told is a ‘solid’ company, and isn’t it good that Shell are now players in the South Basin?

With a US$43 billion asset base, Apache are certainly in a position to accept some financial risk from frontier exploration, especially when our government is hanging so much of its misguided economic policy on the back of an extraction-based model worthy of 19th century robber barons.   We  New Zealanders of course will be carrying 100% of the environmental risk – it is our land, water and coastlines that could be irreparably damaged in the event of  a major accident.

And of course while it is noted that Shell has entered the fray in the South Basin, no mention is made of ExxonMobil and Todd both bailing out on the grounds of unacceptably high risk due to the harshness of  the environmental conditions and  remoteness.

Explorers apparently are not put off by protests from Greenpeace (who we are told are only in it for the headlines) nor by ‘local tribal groups’.  That sounds to me like throwing down a wero, a challenge,  one which I’m sure nga iwi o te motu will not hesitate to take up!

We are told that fresh water contamination from fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in the US has only been due to ‘cowboy’ operators cutting corners, but we need not fear for our precious water resources because the Government will ensure that no such operators will be allowed here. I wonder how our single inspector will detect the presence of cowboys, assuming they are astute enough not to turn up wearing a ten gallon hat and carrying a six-gun?  How will he or she manage to be present at every site throughout every operation to spot corner cutting?

We desperately need a government with a progressive, 21st century economic policy, based on the kind of initiatives that groups like Pure Advantage are advocating.  We need a clean green economy that works for everyone, not a backward looking ‘drill and hope’ mentality that creates so much environmental and economic risk for so little benefit.

Last Saturday I went to pay my respects to one of the grand old men who built the Canterbury Plains, the Rakaia River.

The Rakaia River is the greatest of the remaining untamed braided rivers. Starting in the Southern Alps it reaches the ocean south of Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora. It is one of the rivers that literally formed the Canterbury plains by moving rocks and stones down from the Southern Alps over millions of years.

The Rakaia was the first river in New Zealand to be protected by a Water Conservation Order (WCO) in 1988 – Water Conservation Orders are the equivalent of national parks for rivers.

Russel and Eugenie Sage next to Rakaia River

The WCO protects minimum flows in the river and draws a line in the sand against irrigators and hydro companies. In a world where greed never sleeps, and freshwater is everyday more valuable, WCOs are essential to stop the relentless pressure to take a little bit more every year until there is nothing left.

And that’s why Trustpower (owned by Infratil) and the National Party Government are determined to break the WCO protecting the Rakaia River to extract water to irrigate up to 140,000 hectares of south Canterbury. There’s money in that river and they want it.

They plan to mine this national park.

Rakaia River with Mount Hutt in the background

I started the day at the bottom of the Rakaia, at the Rakaia Huts settlement at the mouth of the river. I travelled with Eugenie Sage, one of the elected ECAN councillors that Nick Smith sacked because she stood up for water, and Scott Walters from the local Greens. We met with Bill Southward, chair of the hutholders association, and went out on his jet boat to see what’s happening. First time I’d been in a jet boat, quite good fun.

Bill and jet boat

One of the paradoxes is that low flows in the Rakaia causes flooding at Rakaia Huts settlement. A bit counterintuitive, but at the mouth of the river it is, as Bill puts it, The River versus the Sea. The ocean current carries shingle north up the coast, and, if the river flow is weak, the sea will close the entrance to the Rakaia river with shingle. And if the entrance is closed the river will bank up and the lagoon will rise up until it floods parts of the settlement.

Mouth of the Rakaia with shingle being pushed from right to left by the coastal currents

Bill’s lived down there for donkey’s years and has seen more and more flooding as the river has got weaker as more and more of its water has been abstracted by dairy corporations, either directly from the river or from the many bores drilled down near to the river.

He showed us how the spring fed rivers running into the lagoon had reduced in flow, as a result of the groundwater dropping under the impact of extraction for dairying.

On the bank of the lagoon

Then we had a meeting with the locals at the community hall. A few people came over from the huts on the south side of the river but most of them from the north bank settlement. It would be fair to say that there was a fair representation of four wheel drives and the hunting fishing shooting fraternity amongst the attendees.

Meeting at Rakaia Huts Community Hall

People at the meeting had a lot of memories and stories to share. Memories of when there used to be trout in the Selwyn river, before it was drained for, and polluted by, irrigation. Stories about how they used to swim in the rivers as kids but how they wouldn’t let their kids in them now. Stories about what a great wonderful river the Rakaia was but they feared they were witnessing its slow death just as they had witnessed the slow death of other nearby rivers.

And they had a great anger at their loss, an anger that all New Zealanders should share. They saw the arrival of the great dairy herds – 5000 cows on Rakaia island between the north and south branches of the Rakaia river with ready access to irrigation water and effluent disposal.

As ordinary New Zealanders who liked to hunt and fish and enjoy the outdoors they felt helpless when faced with the giant dairy corporations with all their money, and with the Selwyn District Council and the government in their pocket. Conspiracy theories abounded.

Pivot irrigator on banks of Waimakariri River.

And rightly so, there is a conspiracy. There is a conspiracy to drain the Rakaia for more dairying. Forest and Bird’s Official Information Act requests revealed that as far back as September 2009 central government was meeting with Trustpower and had decided that they needed to change the WCO on the Rakaia if Trustpower’s irrigation scheme using Lake Coleridge for storage was to proceed. Here’s one abstract

Aide Memoire from Gerry Brownlee and David Carter to John Key, 4/9/09:

To accelerate the TrustPower Lake Coleridge proposal, application could be made to MfE to amend or revoke the existing Rakaia WCO.

Officials and Ministers were looking at how to change the WCO so they could get access to the water and lower the minimum flow. The following graphic shows probably the best case scenario for the impact of the scheme:

The Government was looking for a way forward when an opportunity presented itself in the form of the Canterbury mayors attacking ECAN. When the Government removed the elected councillors at ECAN, they simultaneously undermined WCOs in Canterbury with the same legislation. The earthquake has now provided perfect cover to steal the water from the river.

Only a people’s revolt will stop the river-eating dairy corporations and their agents in central and local government.

Pivot irrigator, Canterbury Plains

Then we headed upland through miles and miles of industrial dairying. Bill remembered when all this land was drystock farming and now it’s all irrigated with the Rakaia’s water.

We stopped to look at a fish trap – masses of water is taken from the north bank of the river next to the SH1 bridge and enters irrigation channels and passes through this dinky machine supposedly to remove fish.

According to those who have seen it in operation it kills more than it saves.

Here is one where water is taken from the south bank. This is the amount of water taken when irrigation is not occurring.

Then we went up to the Rakaia Gorge. Most of its length the Rakaia is a braided river spreading widely across its shingle covered river bed, but here in the gorge it is penned in for a while and it thrashes from side to side as it passes through.

We stopped for lunch above the gorge to be briefed by Dr Tim Davie from the regional council about studies underway to understand how much river water is lost to groundwater.

It seems that both flow minimums and flow variability are essential to the health of the river. Minimum flows mean that there is enough habitat for freshwater fish; medium flow events clean out the periphyton that grows on the shingle underwater; and big flows are essential for cleaning out the vegetation that grows on the islands between the braids. This vegetation can act as habitat for stoats and other predators of the birds on the river. If you eliminate the variability by controlling the flow, you eliminate the flora and fauna adapted to that variability.

Edith Smith from Ashburton Forest and Bird talked about the flora and fauna of the river. Nearly three quarters of all the wrybills in the world live on the Rakaia – wrybills are the only bird to have a a right bending beak – to poke under the shingle for food. Black fronted terns are endangered but common on the river – absolutely beautiful.

Time for my second ever jet boat trip, this time in Phil Deans’ jetboat.

Phil’s family are old time Canterbury, their family donated the park in town and the family homestead was famously destroyed in the quake. Phil is a farmer in the foothills who thinks we are doing too much too fast and threatening what makes NZ special, like the Rakaia River where he fishes and jetboats.

We went down to the Highbank intake, where Trustpower are already pumping up water using some of the existing infrastructure of the Rangitata Diversion race.

Then we headed upstream through the gorge. Stunning place. These are the places that make New Zealand special.

The Rakaia River Gorge – NZ how it’s supposed to be

Those who came before us wisely protected this magnificent river. They made this river into a national park for all of us. Now a new generation wants to mine this national park. We mustn’t let them drain the light from this beautiful river.

I’m standing next to Shayne Cunis, Watercare’s Water Treatment Manager. Shayne has been involved in various battles that Watercare has conducted to try to stop the Waikato River getting even more polluted, and, much to his chagrin, I mentioned him and Watercare’s battles in Parliament a few years back.

This is me drinking the water.

Tastes pretty damn good actually, but by crikey it takes a lot of effort to make it this good.

This is what the river water looks like after it is drawn from the river, screened for big objects and has coagulants added.

Pretty ugly. You may be able to see large globs of muck coagulating on the aluminium sulphate coagulant.

Then this is what it looks like after the coagulated gunk is removed.

Much cleaner but still with a lot of nutrients. There is algae visibly growing on the surface and on the pipes.

Then the river water goes into the really fancy part of the treatment plant which is the membrane filtration – lots of long straws with tiny little holes in them – the holes are 0.035 microns across (micron is one thousandth of the milimetre). So only things that are smaller than 0.035 microns can get through into the straw and to your tap – which stops the protozoa such as giardia and cryptosporidium (from all the animal faeces in the river).

This is what the straws look like when they are out of the water.

After getting through the straws then they go through carbon filters, which apparently have nematodes and other things growing on them which filter the water even further. You can see through the clean water down to the carbon filters in this picture.

Then it gets a bit of chlorine added to kill the viruses and anything else. A bit of fluoride is added, as well as some lime to get the pH right.

And then out comes clean water that is sent in a pipe over the Bombay Hills to contribute about 10% of Auckland’s water – a number that is likely to increase over time as Auckland grows.

This very sophisticated treatment plant cost around $155m. It delivers water at around 19c per cubic metre (1000 litres), which is considerably higher than the cost of the water coming out of the dams in the Hunua Ranges.

The Waikato river treatment plant and pipeline were built after the 1994 drought and were pretty controversial at the time. But it’s here to stay.

What I like about it is that it means that about one in three New Zealanders (Auckland, Hamilton et al) have a very direct interest in the quality of the water coming down the Waikato River because their drinking water is extracted from that catchment. The more polluted that water is, the more expensive and difficult it is to treat it. And if the water gets more polluted, then Watercare will have to invest in even more sophisticated treatment equipment than they have now.

So how bad is the water at the end of the Waikato river?

This is a photo of the mouth of the Waikato taken from the plane yesterday.

Really bad is the answer. It has masses of sediment, lots of nitrogen and phosphorous that feeds algal blooms and heaps of faeces and everything associated with faeces such as bacteria and viruses. There is also a fair bit of heavy metals, some of it natural and some added by Contact’s geothermal plant (they are one of the few geothermal plants that doesn’t re-inject).

A short way upstream of the mouth, the level of faeces near Auckland’s water intake regularly breaches swimming standards. The faeces is largely animal in origin.

In Hamilton they say “Flush twice, Auckland needs the water”. And it’s true that Hamilton’s treated sewerage goes into the Waikato, but only a small fraction of the pollution in the river is due to Hamilton’s sewerage or other point source discharges. Around 70% of all the nitrogen in the river, for example, comes from non-point sources, largely intensive agriculture.

Source: Waikato Regional Council

At the top of the river, as the water leaves Lake Taupō, it is so clean that you can see 12m or more through it. By the time Aucklanders extract it at Tuakau, you can’t see your feet if the water is half way up your ankles.

Median water clarity in Waikato River (Waikato Regional Council)

To get a first-hand view of the river I went for a paddle yesterday, starting at Mercer, past Auckland’s water intake, and pulling out at the Tuakau bridge.

At Mercer I met with Rangi Mahuta and Sally Koia from Waikato Tanui. They are pretty distressed about the state of the river. Tainui are now part of the joint management River Authority which was a Treaty settlement deal. It has some funding to clean up the river and some regulatory tools. The Government has appointed John Luxton to co-chair the Authority with Tuku Morgan, which, given Luxton’s background with Open Country Cheese with its record of pollution, doesn’t fill me with hope. But we shall see.

Joining me on the paddle were Al Fleming and Jon Wenham from Forest and Bird. Al has blogged on the trip too, reflecting

“I can remember swimming in the Waikato River at Cambridge on a daily basis during my summer youth, but one look at the Waikato River at Mercer reminded me why that was no longer possible.”

Jon on the river:

All the rain meant the river was probably even browner than usual – you can see the paddle disappearing into the water.

There were some nice bits of regenerating kahikatea forest, here’s Al in front of some.

We paddled down past the intake for Auckland’s water at this buoy.

And then we came across some pretty average farming practice in these parts.

These animals are unfenced right on the Waikato River. I went over to have a look and they decided I was interesting too, and a big bunch of them came over to have a look at the kayak.

The faeces and urine go straight into the river and the trampling on the edge adds to erosion and sediment. This is what Fed Farmers are defending against regulation.

It is very basic to fence animals out of large rivers, but even this very basic level of good farming practice isn’t in place on the river. We need rules in place to regulate intensive agriculture like this so that we can clean up our rivers.

The real challenge is that getting basic good farming practice in place is only the beginning. Even with good practice there is still a huge run-off of nitrogen from intensive agriculture. As I said in the House back in 2008

Watercare … stated in a submission that discharges from just one industrial dairy development in the Waikato catchment involving Landcorp could mean “the nitrate increase and increased risk of protozoa would cause a decline in water quality”, and “If irrigation was allowed for this one project, summer low flows in the Waikato would reduce by a further 13 percent and river nutrient concentrations could go up by 120 percent.”

Thankfully that particular project didn’t go ahead after the financial crisis but there are plenty more that will take off with dairy prices at high levels. We need clean water rules.

Thanks to everyone involved including Colin for the kayaks.

Now it is time to refocus and plan for our rebuild.  For that I’m convening a series of public forums across Christchurch designed to engage the public in developing a collective vision of a future new city.  The link to our website on these forums is here.

The first meeting was last week, on 20 April, just before Easter.  It was a tremendous success – with about 200 people attending on a cold night in the Netball Centre Hall at Hagley Park.  Five experts gave spell-binding presentations on their vision of a 21^st-century eco-city that would be Christchurch.

• Di Lucas conveyed her insights on how the land should be respected, to mould the shape and nature of the city.
• Suzanne Vallance asked us to consider what it is to be a community, either during times of normalcy or times of crisis.
• Jasper van der Lingen showed us, through beautiful slides, how green spaces might bring a city together.
• Andy Buchanan explained how wood can be utilised as the most environmentally harmonious and resilient structure for buildings – whether residential or commercial.
• Chris Kissling offered a vision of how public and private transport can complement rather than compete to the common good.
• John Peet, summing up, made it clear that we must, above all, attain strong sustainability, sooner rather than later, if our communities are to survive over the long-term, rather than simply the short-term.

Following the presentations, participants broke into five discussion groups reflecting the themes of the evening – landscape, city, architecture, building, and transport.  Facilitators reported back to the plenary session.  A lively general discussion ensued.

For my own part, I sensed six related thoughts emerging in support of a common vision.  They were: green spaces, social harmony, architectural beauty, environmental sustainability, community resilience and risk management.  How these gel into one strategic vision remains to be thought through.

We are not there yet.  There is a variety of ideas, not all entirely compatible.  But that is a good sign.  It means that civic engagement is kicking in.  If we can achieve the optimal balance between expertise and public insight in developing our collective ideas of how to rebuild a city for our descendants – fifty, a hundred years from now – we shall have met our responsibility to posterity.

Next meetings are in Lyttelton and then New Brighton.  Programmes will appear on the website shortly.

Russel goes over a 7m waterfall on the Kaituna

Russel is about to wrap his second annual Dirty Rivers Rafting Tour. Russel has been visiting rivers that are either dangerously polluted, or threatened due to large dam and irrigation projects, and rafting or kayaking them with local environmentalists, whitewater enthusiasts, iwi, farmers, and media.

The purpose of the tour is to highlight the threats to our precious rivers, but also to celebrate some of the most beautiful rivers in the country. It’s also to put pressure on Environment Minister Nick Smith to adopt clean water rules now before it’s too late.

In this podcast, on the eve of his final trip, Russel talks about the highs and lows of the tour, whether he got sick from the dirty water or scared going over a 7m waterfall, and why we need clean water rules, now.

This week’s track is Regenerate, by the Midnights, supplied courtesy of Loop.

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If you’re having problems with our Flash player, try this alternative site. This podcast series is now available on iTunes.

The Group was initiated by hapu of Te Uri o Hau and Ngati Whatua o Kaipara o Nga Rima, both of whom have kaitiaki status on areas of the harbour and its catchment.  They very quickly worked out that lots of people and organisations were doing work on and in the harbour, but there was a lack of integration or even coordination so the outcomes of the efforts were less than they could have been.

A research project delivered a solid base for understanding the condition of the harbour and of the influences acting on it, and now a combination of Western science and matauranga Maori is being applied.  An ecosystem managment approach is  generating solutions – focused actions, especially protecting the waterways feeding into the harbour from sedimant and pollutants.

One of the best presentations I thought was from two young farmers whose families have long association with the area, who are now devoting considerable resource and effort to stabilising eroding land, fencing off and protecting waterways, pest management, and retiring land that assists the ecological restoration and also has a positive effect on the productivity of land still in production.

It is early days, and a lot of work yet to be done, but as an example of Maori and non-Maori organisations and individuals working together with a common cause, to improve environmental, social and economic prospects, it is hard to beat!

Meet Joan and John McLauchlan. They are farmers from the Wairau Valley near Blenheim and they are the last line of defence against TrustPower’s attempts to destroy the Wairau River.

I launched my 2011 summer Rivers Tour on the Wairau River on Monday with 25 of us paddling down a section of the river.

TrustPower, majority owned by Infratil, wants to drain up to 60% of the water from the river, run it through a 47 km canal with five hydro powerstations, before dropping it back into the river. John and Joan’s property is in the way of the canal and they won’t sell.

The Wairau River is a magnificent braided river that flows northeast from Nelson Lakes National Park, down the Wairau Valley past Blenheim, and comes out at Cloudy Bay [technically it drains 'the east of the main divide including the Raglan Range, the Rainbow Conservation Area and the north end of the Molesworth Conservation Area' - thank you Quentin] .

The endemic black-fronted tern, and black-billed gull are two critically endangered species that breed on the many shingle bars that form on this variable river. 10-12% of the total population of 400-500 pairs of black-fronted tern, breed on the Wairau River. Endangered banded dotterel, trout and salmon, as well as four endangered native fish species, long finned eel, dwarf galaxid, northern or Canterbury galaxid and the giant kokapu species, will all be at significant risk due to the scheme.

Draining most of the water from 47 kms of the river will reduce the habitat available to native fish and trout, will result in hotter water, will increase weed growth, will result in reduced braids which are bird habitat and so on. It is an act of environmental vandalism on a massive scale.

TrustPower’s application has gone through all the stages of the RMA process.

It went to a hearing panel appointed by the Marlborough District Council. This panel demonstrated their depth of environmental understanding and/or concern by stating that they thought the environmental effects of draining of 60% of the river were ”less than minor” and ticking the scheme.

This absurd decision was appealed to the ”Environment” Court by Save the Wairau, Fish & Game and others. The “Environment” Court found that the adverse effects were actually more than minor, and that the proposal breached the council’s plan for protecting the river. But, incredibly, they decided on balance that it was an example of ‘sustainable management’. Remember the names of RG Whiting, AJ Sutherland, JR Mills, and HM Beaumont, for they are the “Environment” Court judge and commissioners who are responsible for this piece of environmental destruction.

Once the “Environment” Court approved the proposal to trash the river, the environmental movement ran out of money to take it further to the High Court etc. So now TrustPower are negotiating with farmers to put the canal and powerstations through farmers’ land.

But Joan and John say “No” they won’t sell (and others won’t also).

So now the question is: will Trustpower apply to the Government to be given the power to forcibly take their land from them under the Public Works Act. It would mean that the National Party Minister for the Environment, Nick Smith, would have to agree to  forcibly take farmers land so that TrustPower can trash the river.

It will be a test to see if the party of property rights will use coercive state power to take land off farmers for a large corporation, and whether Smith is the Minister for or against the Environment.

Koura farmers – the canary in the coal mine

Aside from TrustPower, one of the other threats to the river is intensive agriculture. This is no better demonstrated than by the experience of freshwater aquaculture farmer, Peter Wilhelmus. Peter has been farming salmon and koura (native freshwater crayfish) near the Wairau River for many years.

The problem for koura farmers is that they need clean water. And that means that if you have deer or dairy or pig farmers upstream then they need to have good practices. And unfortunately some farmers are good and some are bad and there are few regulations to force the bad ones to behave.

Water pollution from Mill Stream killed off Peter’s salmon, probably a toxic algal bloom. When finally, after a decade of complaints, the Marlborough District Council investigated, the report found that Mill Stream is highly polluted, even though it is a spring-fed, with high levels of nitrate, e.coli and sediment from stock effluent etc.

Peter is still battling along breeding koura, even breeding some red ones.

Things have improved a bit but it has taken a huge toll on Peter and his business. Freshwater aquaculture has great potential but it needs councils and governments that will stop water pollution rather than turn a blind eye to a ‘permitted’ activity. The pollution in Mill Stream ends up in the Wairau River.

Forestry

As if the rivers didn’t have enough problems, then there are poor forestry practices.

The recent storms in Marlborough caused massive damage because of silt and debris coming down from logging sites. Poor forestry harvesting practices, such a logging to the edge of waterways and multiple dirt roads across waterways without bridges or culverts, means that heavy rain events release tonnes of soil and masses of logging debris downstream. The silt destroys habitat in rivers by filling in the gaps between gravel and rocks, gaps where native fish live, and the debris gets caught under bridges causing extra flooding of houses and farms.

It seems that the Marlborough District Council rules were inadequate, assuming the companies followed the MDC rules (hard to know for sure as very little enforcement or monitoring). Either way people’s houses were flooded and the rivers bore the brunt of the sediment.

So you might think it’s a step forward that the Ministry for the Environment is looking at establishing a National Environment Standard on Plantation Forestry. An NES could put in place a minimum standard for forestry practices which could lift practices in places like Marlborough.

However, the NES could act to reduce environmental standards depending on how it is written. If the forestry industry has its way, the NES will impose maximum environmental standards not minimum standards. Thus individual councils would be prevented from setting a higher standard. This is the case, for example, with the Labour Party’s NES on telecommunications which prevents councils from taking a more precautionary approach to non-ionising radiation coming out of cellphone towers.

So we shall see which way Nick Smith goes on the NES on forestry – a minimum standard or a maximum.

Thanks to everyone involved in my trip, including members of Forest & Bird, Fish & Game, Save the Wairau,  the local Greens, and concerned locals. Particular thanks to Kerry Raeburn and Steffan Browning.

The Wairau is one of our great rivers but it is at risk. It is only because of the efforts of people like these who love this country that our natural environment stands a chance against vandals like TrustPower. Central and local government and the Environment Court are supposed to be the guardians of the environment but are manifestly failing to perform that task.

Here are some highlights of the speech and you can read the whole thing here.

Running through the history of democracy has been the issue of just who is a member of society? In ancient Athens women and slaves were not. In early nineteenth century Britain only landowners were. Many societies are still battling to include ethnic minorities. I was living in Switzerland in 1972 when women achieved the vote for the first time in federal elections. I was astonished it had taken so long, but even more amazed that the main opposition came from some women who saw it as a threat to the stability of families.

For several years there has been rising discontent in Canterbury about the over allocation of water from rivers and aquifers, and over deteriorating water quality. People who would never have seen themselves as activists created a new organization calling for a moratorium on new water rights until the problem was sorted. Farmers who were moving in large numbers from traditional dryland farming to irrigated dairying saw their livelihoods at risk. Councils tended to represent the farmers.

If democracy is about governing by the will of the people for the greatest good of the greatest number, then it also requires controlling our own economic destiny which includes ownership of our key productive assets, particularly land, and the ability of our elected representatives to make economic decisions in the future. Rod was deeply concerned that both of these have been steadily whittled away by successive governments. He would be even more concerned at the renewed attacks on them now.

There is no public movement—yet—to oppose Solid Energy’s proposals for massive lignite development in Southland which would release greenhouse gases significant on a global scale and make anything else NZ does on climate change largely irrelevant. Yet we had tens of thousands of people sign the Sign On petition asking the government to set a target to reduce greenhouse emissions by 40% by 2020, and hundreds of people actually came to the Minister’s public meetings to demand that commitment.

Three companies are trying again to secure land use rights for large-scale dairy farming in the Omarama and Ohau regions of the South Island.

They want to develop 16 dairy farms with up to 17,850 cows housed in cubicles.

Looks like it’s the same people with the same sort of plans as last time. One thing that is different now is that there’s no pesky Environment Canterbury acting as gate-keepers, just Nationals hand-picked team of dictators.

Join the Facebook group to keep informed about the latest verse of the saga and what part you can play in it.

Thought this billboard that someone has put up was awesome. Apparently it has upset some of the local regional councillors who have overseen the pollution…

Great stuff. Only problem is, the farmers aren’t playing ball. Federated Farmers have so far refused to sign the Manawatu River Leaders’ Accord, not because of tough standards or costs imposed on their members, but because of emotive ‘descriptors’ in the document. They object to the river being described as “dirty, lacking life and culturally compromised.”

Are they for real? This is the river that was found to rate the worst of 300 international rivers in Cawthron Institute research released last year. It ranks in the bottom 10 of 77 monitored sites in the National River Water Quality league tables for all three measures: biological health, clarity and nutrient levels.

It really isn’t that surprising. As Russel pointed out after his kayaking trip on the river in March, this is a river facing multiple pressures; it is a long river with denuded headwaters, it is shallow and often has low flows, there are numerous point source discharges from councils and industry, and it’s a heavily farmed catchment resulting in nutrient and effluent run-off.

The problems are by no means down to farmers alone. But for the Feds to refuse to sign up to action on the Manawatu because the document describes the river as “dirty” really signals a new low in their head in the sand approach to water quality.

Media reports indicate they may sign the document today. Let’s hope they’ve set the pettiness aside and seen the light – better late than never.

Trend is worsening: NIWA states that water quality is degrading in our major rivers and that the ‘upward trend in temperature, nitrogen and phosphorus has strengthened in recent years’.

Source of the pollution: ‘pastoral farming… is undoubtedly the main source of diffuse pollution… Streams in dairy land are among the most polluted.’ 

And why the decline in water quality: ‘There is no doubt that our declining river water quality over the last 20 years is associated with intensification of pastoral farming and the conversion of drystock farmland to dairy farming, particularly in Waikato, Southland and Canterbury.’

Why is dairy such a problem: ‘dairy farming is a leaky process… the average nitrogen lost from the soil on dairy farms was 39 kg per hectare per year.’

Hence, there are limits to mitigation: ‘best management practices can only do so much’.

So should we recklessly expand dairying?: NIWA are ‘concerned about the expansion of dairying into high rainfall or heavily irrigated areas where there is a greater risk of contaminants getting washed into waters.”

And what is the government doing – well NIWA can’t say this but the Govt is planning to rapidly expand dairying in areas like Canterbury where it will result in even more dramatic pollution.

The whole article is worth a read.

The Mangatarere is in the Wairarapa and feeds into the Waiohine which feeds the Ruamahunga. It has some significant problems and the report tries to find out why.

I’ve only read the Summary, but a few things stand out.

Carterton waste water treatment plant add a fair bit of the phosphorous. But it is the dairy farms and a pig farm that add the nitrogen and e coli. The riparian mangement is pretty bad. Abstraction for irrigation is drying it out in summer, much more than it would naturally.

But here’s the kicker, only 6 of the 30 dairy farms in the catchment have storage for the dairy shed effluent. This is quite shocking. This means that even if it’s driving with rain and the ground is soaked, the effluent will be sprayed on the field because they have no capacity to store it.  So the raw effluent runs off the field with the rain and drains into the river, or if the ground is soaked it pools and runs off over the surface, or it soaks right through and passes into the groundwater.

That is pretty wildly bad state of affairs for the Wellington regional council which should be one of the better ones.

The water would be used to spread intensive dairy across huge swathes of Canterbury.

The proponents talk vaguely about about mitigating environmental effects. This is simply greenwash.

Every study of water quality issues in NZ shows that the key driver of water pollution over the last decade has been the spread of intensive dairy. The science is black and white.

If you spread more intensive dairying you will pollute the rivers and aquifers even more than they are already polluted. 90% of the pollution comes from the cows in the field not in the milking shed, so even if they meet the conditions of their dairy shed effluent discharge consent, the intensive stocking rates will still result on massive non-point source pollution. The science around this is quite settled.

Those with dollar signs in their eyes are trying to use a bit of greenwash to cover up the science.

Canterbury has “plenty of water” and people worried about rapid changes in its regulation need to be educated, says Environment Canterbury (ECan) head commissioner Dame Margaret Bazley.

There is not plenty of water, it seems that Bazley needs to be educated if these comments are accurate.

Lots of rivers dry up in summer due to overextraction. Lots of rivers are heavily polluted due to too much nitrogen, phosphorous, sediment and e coli, and the ecosystems in them are dying or dead. The aquifer under the plains is dramatically overallocated in places with the result that the water levels drop precipitously in summer as irrigation starts up, and in places the aquifer is heavily polluted and dangerous for human health.

Key and others think we can take the high flows and store them for irrigation. But that misses the ecological services that high flows provide in maintaining the braids which are essential habitat and in cleaning out the system. And they don’t even think of the impact of the expanded irrigation on the pollution entering the aquifer and rivers.

Not only is the image of Mr Burns rafting the Hurunui River strangely similar to many of those from Russel’s Dirty Rivers Rafting Tour…

…but the language is suspiciously familiar as well. ‘Quality of Life’ is an old Green Party slogan from years ago. On the back of his leaflet Mr Burns has this to say:

‘Clean and green’ is the basis of our economic livelihood – both for what we produce and our huge tourism industry.

Now where have I heard that before? Oh that’s right, at Russel’s speech to the Green Party AGM in June.

We say clean and green is the basis of our economic success. No environment, no economy. Clean and green: If we keep it real, we’ll all be better off.

Funny, I know it was in Christchurch, but I don’t think I saw Brendon Burns there. He must have read it online.

Here’s something else Russel said in that speech which Mr Burns seems to have conveniently ignored:

When Labour was in office the export economy was driven by massive expansion in dairy and tourism. Both sectors are built on clean and green, but they’re heading for a terrible collision. 

Labour took advantage of clean and green as tourism boomed, but put up no fight to protect our rivers and lakes while those waterways were being overwhelmed by dairy effluent. 

Labour invested in clean green branding PR but did not invest in keeping it real.

It’s nice to see that Brendon Burns now agrees that clean water is our birthright, that our brand is the basis of our economy, and that our precious wild places, like the Hurunui River, are under threat.

But his party had nine years in Government and not only did they do nothing about it, they actually facilitated the destruction by supporting irrigation schemes like the Hurunui Water Project. They sat on their hands while our rivers and aquifers were drained and polluted, and attacked the Greens when we spoke out about it.

So excuse my cynicism but actions really do speak louder than words. It’s a little hard to listen to the party that caused the water disaster telling us about the passion for clean water they have suddenly acquired now that they’re in opposition.

Checking out the Ruamahunga River with local farmers

Masterton District Council (MDC) is due to make a decision next month about how it will upgrade its wastewater facilities. At the moment, 100 percent of the town’s sewage is pumped (after treatment) into the Ruamahanga River, which pleases no-one, especially not local iwi Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa. (The Ruamahanga did pretty badly in the freshwater quality league tables released by the Ministry for the Environment last year).

MDC has plans to upgrade by diverting some of this waste from the river and re-using it for irrigation on a council-owned farm. That sounds pretty good, but the current plan is to irrigate with about a third of the treated sewage using border dykes which are a fairly outdated way to irrigate and cause quite a lot of the waste to leach back into the groundwater and ultimately the river. The other two thirds would still go in the river.

The alternative is to use cheaper centre pivot irrigators which can spread the waste water more evenly over a larger distance, and spread it at a rate that means a lot less of it leaches back into the river. Even better, there are farmers lining up on neighbouring properties who would love to use the other two thirds of the treated waste water for irrigation during the dry months, meaning 100 percent of the sewage could be diverted out of the river. The money that would have been spent on costly, outdated border dykes could be spent on treating the water so that it’s up to irrigation standard for these farms.

Sounds like a win win to me – the Ruamahanga gets cleaned up, and a waste product gets reused as a sustainable resource.

Existing sewage treatment ponds due for upgrade

But the MDC has to choose between border dykes and centre pivots soon and it’s not looking promising, despite a feasibility study into the alternatives. It seems a bit crazy that they’re making such an important decision that will bind future councils right before an election, so I reckon they should get on with the non-controversial upgrades on the sewage treatment ponds and delay the decision about irrigation until there’s a new council.

In the meantime, the farmers, irrigators, iwi representatives and Sustainable Wairarapa members I met with are planning a public meeting to spread the word about how Masterton could get its sewage out of the river and into productive use. All power to them I say!

Thanks to everyone I met with for their hospitality and information.

Out of the 427 submissions, one of the most interesting and well done was put forward by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.

The submission outlines the problems with defining core services, the emphasis on investing and undertaking commercial activities, operating within a defined fiscal envelope, removing consultation amongst a plethora of other problems with the bill as it stands.

On Local Government itself,

Local government has an impact on the lives of all New Zealanders, providing public goods and responding to diverse community needs. The role of local government is vitally important in people’s daily lives, in responding to the challenges facing communities and to specific new challenges such as climate change.

The environment is not even mentioned as a core service in the Bill!

On “Core Services”,

Defining core services is problematic because of the diverse needs of our communities, the way those needs change with time, and the importance of communities themselves deciding what is core for their region. It is local communities who should maintain the right to define their priorities. If anything is “core”, it is the right for electorates to set their own priorities. That is “core” to the democratic process and to accountability.

On operating within a “Fiscal Envelope”,

Local authorities also have a role to play in maintaining activity in the economy during an economic recession such as the current one. Had there been a cap on government spending at the national level during the recent economic crisis New Zealand could well have gone into much deeper recession or depression. That was internationally accepted. Local authorities can contribute in just the same way by, for example, bringing forward construction projects, or providing work for people thrown out of work (perhaps with central government financial assistance). At present they can fund this additional expenditure from borrowing, but under the capped funding proposal would not be able to react as swiftly.

We have seen with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in Colorado that this system is disasterous. Colorado has had to turn off street lights and relies on it’s taxi drivers to help out the police department.

On the removal on consultation,

Equally wanting “councils to decide for themselves” envisages councils as separate from the residents who elect them. The current Act sets out a process – not an outcome – which actually helps individual communities to reach unique solutions.

Like any form of representation, it should be “of the people, by the people, for the people“.

On Private-Public Partnerships,

The view that PPPs provide infrastructure and other assets more cheaply than direct taxpayer funding is erroneous. Private finance is rarely cheaper than government funding. In addition, the profits of private providers become an added cost to ratepayers or service users.

On privitising water services by stealth,

Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s water supply is publicly provided. The two countries that make the greatest use of privatised water services are the United Kingdom and France. In France, where multinationals Veolia and Suez supply 8 out of 10 citizens with water, many municipalities want to get rid of these commercial arrangements as soon as possible. Indeed, more than 40 French municipalities and urban communities including Paris and Grenoble returned water services to public hands during the ten years to 2008. Lack of transparency, poor water quality, continual cost increases, failure to expand and upgrade networks, and monopoly abuse were among the problems. The municipalities also have great difficulty monitoring whether the amounts in the billings correspond to the services performed and if fees paid in are really being used for restoring the pipes.

All of this makes for stark reading. Rodey Hide’s agenda is quite clear. Prepare publically owned infrastructure for sale. Move management of public assets into private hands. Limit participation in local government. Impose a sinking-lid funding scheme on local government so they are unable to provide the services New Zealanders expect them to provide.

You can read the entire CTU submission here [PDF].

A quick history:

National policy statements are tools that can be developed under the Resource Management Act to guide local and regional councils to make decisions when local concerns conflict with issues of national significance.

A draft NPS on fresh water was started under the Labour Government, but the draft produced was waffly, ineffective, unclear, and wouldn’t have done anything much to protect our clean up our waterways.

That draft was referred to a Board of Inquiry headed by Judge David Shepperd who reviewed it, heard public submissions, and made suggestions to improve it. These suggestions amount to a substantial re-write and the new draft is strong, clear, and ambitious about setting targets and timeframes for actually improving water quality and stemming the tide of environmental destruction.

This draft was provided to Environment Minister Nick Smith back in January, but he has clearly put it in the “too hard” basket, and kicked it to touch for the Land and Water Forum to consider. That group is due to report back in July (and reaching consensus will be no mean feat).

In the meantime, our rivers are getting dirtier and dirtier, and this potentially helpful tool is languishing. It’s great to see it getting a public airing. This issue was also featured on Nine to Noon this morning, including Russel, Nick Smith, and Federated Farmers’ dairy chairperson Lachlan McKenzie.

And what did McKenzie have to say about it? I’ve got to hand it to him, he didn’t beat around the bush:

“We don’t need that one. That one has rules in it.”

Perish the thought!