Aotearoa’s lakes and rivers are mostly unswimmable, and deteriorating

Christine Rose (Greenpeace agricultural campaigner)

The jury is in: two recently released reports confirm that Aotearoa/New Zealand’s lakes and rivers are in an appalling state, and worsening.

At the local level Lake Whatumā in Central Hawkes Bay has been rated by the data-gathering project Lakes 380: Our lakes’ health past, present and future as having ‘exceedingly poor’ water quality, and as being ‘hypertrophic’*: (Check out other lakes around the motu using the interactive map in the link above)

*‘hy·per·tro·phy’: Hypertrophic lakes are highly fertile and supersaturated in phosphorus and nitrogen.

The statistics from around the rest of Hawkes Bay paint a similarly dismal picture, with less than 10% of lakes rated as ‘fair, or ‘good’, and the remaining 90% being ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’. The Hawkes Bay figures are the second worst in the country, behind Taranaki, and on a par with Gisborne.

National figures fare little better, with the health of over 80% of North island lakes rated as being ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.

These figures align with another recently released report, Our Freshwater 2023 which records a worsening trend for the health of our lakes, while 45% of our total river length is unswimmable, with 2/3 of our freshwater native bird species threatened with extinction.

Responses from various commentators and sectors are telling:

Dr Mike Joy (Freshwater scientist): “The number one impact on water quality is way too much fertiliser, way too many cattle … as long as we ignore the cause, nothing is going to change”. Joy argues that Labour have failed to tackle this core issue. (Source: NZ Herald).

Hon. David Parker (Environment Minister): “Because of time lags involved in producing the data, the report mainly covered the period before the launch of the Government’s Essential Freshwater reforms in September 2020”. Parker also states that the statistics are an “indictment” on the country and an “intergenerational challenge” to turn around. (Source: NZ Herald).

Christine Rose (Greenpeace agricultural campaigner): “Rapid deintensification of the dairy industry is critical to making that change. That means decreasing the number of cows, cutting synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, and transitioning to a way of farming that works with, instead of against, nature.” Rose comments that this report should be a real wake up call to the government. (Source: Greenpeace Media Release).

Eugene Sage (Green Party environment spokeswoman) “The Government needs to progressively phase out synthetic fertiliser use, implement the intensive winter grazing rules, and increase support for regenerative farming practices to reduce nutrient pollution and sediment run-off.” Sage also notes the Government is not doing enough to ensure rivers, lakes and aquifers are healthy, perhaps forgetting that her party form part of the current Government. (Source: NZ Herald).

Tom Belford (Editor, Bay Buzz): “There is no good news here; absolutely nothing for a nation that markets itself to the world as ‘clean and green’ should be proud of.” Belford also highlights the report’s finding that microplastics and chemical contaminates from urban sources are an issue, and rightly points out that when it comes to threatening our water quality we’re all culprits. (Source: Bay Buzz)

Tom Kay (Freshwater advocate, Forest & Bird NZ) “the report is clear that it's human activities – particularly intensive farming – that have the biggest impact on the health of our water and according to experts there is very little sign in this report that those impacts are reducing.” Kay argues that Local and central government need to up their game now and use the tools and rules they already have. (Source: Forest & Bird Media Release)

Colin Hurst (Federated Farmers spokesperson on Freshwater regulations): “the new Freshwater 2023 report doesn't reflect the improvements farmers are making to waterways.” Hurst claims the report over-estimates the amount of nitrogen fertiliser in waterways and that the farming community is on the journey to making a difference. (Source: Radio NZ)

Wise Water Use say the figures speak for themselves:

• Dairy cattle numbers increased by 82 per cent nationally from 3.4 million to 6.3 million between 1990 and 2019.

• Irrigated land doubled between 2002 and 2019, with around 73 per cent of this increase attributable to dairy intensification. (Source: NZ Herald).

While there are certainly many contributing factors to the deterioration of our waterways and ecosystems including urban discharges, the elephant in the room here in CHB is intensive dairying. We have 10 water users (most of them intensive dairy operations) allocated 59% of groundwater and 67% of surface water. This is neither fair nor environmentally sustainable.

As successive HB Regional Councils apparently do not have the political will to review and relocate these water consents this must fall to central government – be sure to ask your local candidates whether they will commit to reviewing and reallocating water consents when they hit the local campaign trial later this year.