Vaughan Payne article page 8 of
Coast & Country News January 2018
The Coast and Country News, monthly newspaper, published a reply from Vaughan Payne, Chief Executive of the Waikato Regional Council, to an article written by Mr Rick Burke in the January edition.
The following is an open letter to Mr Payne.
In that reply Mr Payne is quoted as saying:
“In order to have a significant impact on reducing contaminants and improving water quality everyone in the Waikato and Waipa river catchment needs to do their part. PPC1 sets limits and targets to ensure everyone in the catchment is working to improve water quality”.
While I agree that everyone should do their part to reduce contaminants and improve water quality I totally disagree that under PPC1 everyone is required to work to improve water quality.
The reason that I totally disagree with this part of his statement is that PPC1 is totally focused on agricultural land users yet 39% of nitrogen and 55% of phosphorous are from sources other than farming.
Rural industrial land users and all urban dwellers are exempt from any requirements under PPC1.
Everyone in the catchment has an effect on the water quality (we all flush the WC) yet agriculture is being singled out under the PPC1.
With these facts in mind and given the almost total focus on the agricultural sector, then I challenge Mr Payne to explain just how PPC1 is ensuring “everyone in the catchment is working to improve water quality”.
Mr Payne talks about the Nitrogen Reference Point (NRP) being a tool used to ensure that nitrogen discharges are held at current levels and reduced yet this so called tool is being calculated by using a system (Overseer) that was never designed as a regulatory tool.
Overseer was designed to be an expert system to inform nutrient management decisions at the farm level. As with any model attempting to describe biological processes, it’s predicted outputs are subject to errors. For example the minimum error (CV, coefficient of variation) in the predicted rate of nitrogen leaching from Overseer is about 30% but it can be much higher (>100%) if the incorrect input data is used, inadvertently or otherwise.
So Under PPC1 we have a system of grandparenting nitrogen discharges based on a tool that has a built in possibility for error and this is going to hold discharge levels and see reductions!!!
I again challenge Mr Payne to explain how the NRP can possibly be used in a regulatory situation when it is based on a system with a known possibility of error.
Surely this will lead to decisions which in some cases are going to have extreme consequences for the land users, being challenged in the courts with consequent costs being born by the ratepayers to defend these actions when it is already known that there is a possibility for error.
PPC1 does not address the issue of pest fishes in the waterways and without addressing this issue there is no way that the Vision & Strategy under the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act 2010 will ever be achieved.
Schedule 2, Vision (k) states “the restoration of the water quality within the Waikato River so that it is safe for people to swim in and take food from over its entire length.”
Impact of pest fishes:
When they feed, they feed like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up everything and blowing out what isn’t wanted.
They stir up the bottom of ponds, lakes and rivers, muddying the water and destroying native plant and fish habitat. Koi carp are opportunistic omnivores, which means they eat a wide range of food, including insects, fish eggs, juvenile fish of other species and a diverse range of plants and other organic matter.
Aquatic plants are dislodged in the process and are unlikely to re-establish. Koi carp cause habitat loss for plants, native fish, invertebrates and waterfowl.
Many people are unaware of the damage done to our waterways by pest fish. Unfortunately some types of introduced fish have spread into the wild, become pests and are threatening New Zealand’s freshwater species and environments by:
So given time there will be no native species available “for taking for food” and the rivers will never be “safe for people to swim in” due to the actions of the pest fishes and their methods of feeding.
I challenge Mr Payne to explain how PPC1 is going to achieve the desired results without addressing the issue of pest fishes.
Whilst we applaud and support the aims of PPC1 (cleaner waterways) the current proposed plan change 1 as it currently stands is not fit for this purpose and that it will only result in huge costs for all involved without the benefit of achieving the desired results
Andy Loader
Co-Chairman P.L.U.G.
(Primary Land Users Group)