14 July 2014
National muddying waters and needs to come clean
The Government’s inaccurate response to the Green Party’s clean rivers policy shows it is scared of the Party’s plans
that will actually make rivers clean enough to swim in, the Green Party said today.
Minister of Economic Development, Steven Joyce, claims that only polluted sites are monitored. However the most recent
Ministry for the Environment report card on the suitability of our rivers for swimming shows 61 percent of our monitored
river swimming sites are not safe for swimming. The report identifies that sites are selected because they are “popular
for primary contact recreation”.
“Joyce has simply got it wrong again,” said Green Party water spokesperson Eugenie Sage.
“New Zealanders want to be able to swim in their local river, but National’s plans offer nothing better than the ability
to wade in them.
“If the Government wants to turn our rivers into drainage ditches, then it should come clean about that.
“National is being mischievous with the facts:
- They are ignoring the jobs cleaning up our rivers can create, and overlooking the cost we face if we fail to ensure
our clean green image matches reality;
- Their claims that water conservation orders are adequate overlooks the fact that under National the Rakaia’s water
conversation order was weakened to allow more irrigation;
- Water conservation orders also don’t protect rivers from pollution. The Mohaka and some of its tributaries are
protected by a Water Conservation Order. This has not prevented a major tributary, the Taharua River, from being
polluted by more intensive land use in its catchment;
- The Environment Minister has forgotten that there is a definition of river in the Resource Management Act that
excludes farm drainage ditches, irrigation canal and water supply races;
- The Yangtze River was cited by the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences society in their submission on the Government’s
water quality proposal, along with the Mississippi River which is so polluted it has created ‘dead zones’ in the Gulf of
Mexico,
- Mainly more rivers than the 13 covered by water conservation orders deserve protection.
“If the National minister want to argue with the science then they should take it up with the scientists. What we know
is that New Zealanders want to be able to swim in the rivers where they live, and we can have rules that ensure they
can.
“The Environment Minister Amy Adams has stated that she would like her children to be able to swim in the lakes and
rivers where she lives. Many monitored swimming sites where she lives are graded unsafe for swimming, including the
Selwyn River/Waikirikiri at the Upper Huts.
“An Environment Canterbury report that covers water quality in the Selwyn electorate cited that further land use
intensification is likely to lead to further compromise of recreational values like swimming.
“Despite this her Government has backed the Central Plains irrigation scheme which will result in more pollution of the
rivers in the Selwyn electorate, and Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere,” said Dr Sage.