Whangarei District Council is to change land leases in some areas to try to stop cattle fouling rivers.

The decision follows action by a local man Milan Ruka, who bought a boat and camera and began filming the pollution of waterways.

The Regional Council has said there is little it can do, despite pictures of dead cows, cattle grazing on unfenced river banks and stock drinking from streams.

However, Whangarei deputy mayor Phil Halse says his council leases riparian land to farmers in the Hikurangi drainage area and it has a reponsibility to look after it. (Read on …)

Four hotly-contested resource consents to pump both treated and untreated sewage into the Tasman Sea have been approved.

Permission has been given for New Plymouth District Council to pump Waitara and New Plymouth sewage during the building of a $14 million pipeline and then for 30 years from the treatment plants of both towns.

The move follows a packed hearing in front of independent commissioners in New Plymouth at the start of the month.

The four consents granted range from five years, covering the building of the pipeline, to 30 years, for when the pipeline and treatment plant upgrades are finished. (Read on …)

The case brought by Waikato Regional Council – and heard in Hamilton District Court before Judge Melanie Harland – concerned two events in March and November last year at a farm in Paewhenua Rd owned by the Gregan Family Trust.

Following helicopter monitoring by the council in November 2010 a ground inspection was carried out at the Gregan property. This inspection showed that effluent from a holding pond was deliberately being siphoned off to a nearby paddock where it was ponded in large volumes. Council staff also found that there was a substantial recent overflow of effluent from a second holding pond. (Read on …)

Two Bay of Plenty farmers who dumped effluent into beachside waterways have been fined a total of more than $50,000.

Paul Warneford of Warneford Farms Ltd faced a charge after allowing an irrigation machine to discharge dairy effluent into a water way leading to the Nukuhou River, which flows into the Ohiwa Harbour. (Read on …)

Palmerston North City Council has been issued a significant non compliance and abatement notice giving them until 30 November 2011 to comply with their consent to discharge to the Manawatu River.

Horizons has found the city council to be in breach of a condition in their consent which spells out there should be no significant adverse effects on the aquatic life in the river.

Compliance manager Alison Russell said that the issue in question had been brought to light following a benthic biota survey which looks at the river’s insect life up and down stream of the city’s discharge. (Read on …)

Ashburton district farmers face cost blowouts if they delay the installation of water
measuring systems as required by the government’s National Regulations.
From 10 November 2012 water consent holders with takes of more than 20 litres per
second need to have installed a water measuring and reporting system.
John Young, Environment Canterbury’s Team Leader Water Metering, said consent
holders must comply with the Government’s regulations and need to act soon to
avoid the expected rush for equipment and installations. (Read on …)

Farmers have been given a clear message to use water efficiently, with the release this week of the first Environment Canterbury resource consent decision on water use in the upper Waitaki catchment.

Large capital investment may be required by farmers and irrigation companies to meet efficiency targets.

Six resource consents have been granted to the Upper Waitaki Community Irrigation Company for an unusually short period of five years.

The company had asked for 35 years. (Read on …)

Local Government New Zealand says a suggestion that there be government appointees on local bodies to tackle water pollution would require a major law change, and much less drastic action would be preferable.

The comments follow a report from the office of the Auditor-General that says regional councils are not doing enough to prevent the degradation of fresh water by dairy farms, and councillors are getting in the way of prosecutions taking place.

Environment Minister Nick Smith says the Government will consider a suggestion by the Land and Water Forum to appoint goverment representatives. (Read on …)