Last
year, the Government released its Action for Healthy Waterways discussion document. It
outlined the much-anticipated proposed changes to our national freshwater
management framework. The discussion
document resulted in over 12,000 submissions being received for consideration
by a government appointed expert panel.
The
recommendations by the expert panel, and approved by Cabinet, were released at
the end of May. These are essentially a
suite of broad policies. They are final
and therefore, no further opportunity exists to have input on them. It would be fair to say that the
recommendations overall result is a much more balanced, practical suite of
changes, but there is still a lot of detail to come, as discussed later, and
the odd quirk that wasn’t expected.
The
broad policies are as follows:
- Councils will be able to maintain water quality attributes below the national bottom line to “secure the benefits” of the existing structures in the Waikato, Tongariro, Waitaki, Manapouri, and Clutha hydro schemes.
- Limits will be defined and how they are to be expressed in planning documents.
- Water quantity limits must be linked to ecosystem health outcomes.
- Territorial authorities will be required to manage effects of urban land development on freshwater bodies and coastal marine environment.
- Clarification of what Te Mana o Te Wai means and how it is to be implemented, both nationally and regionally.
- Councils will be required to actively involve tangata whenua in council processes for policy and plan development and decision-making.
- Regional council policies and plans must include mahinga kai as a value.
- Amendments to ensure regional authorities manage all aspects of ecosystem health (not just water quality and quantity).
- New attributes with national bottom lines:
- Macroinvertebrates
- Submerged plants in lakes
- Dissolved oxygen
- Suspended sediment
- Deposited sediment
- E. coli at swimming sites during the bathing season
- New attributes without national bottom lines:
- Fish species
- Ecosystem metabolism
- Dissolved reactive phosphorous
- Existing national bottom lines for nitrate and ammonia toxicity attributes will be strengthened to protect 95% of species from toxic effects. Exceptions to this will be allowed in specific areas of the Pukekohe and Lake Horowhenua catchments, due to contribution to national food security (vegetable production).
- From mid-2020, technical standards, methods, and requirements for activities affecting streams and wetlands will be prescribed. This will include vegetation clearance, earthworks (including for drainage), and changes to water levels. Includes surrounding vicinity. Resource consents will be required for most of these activities.
- From mid-2020, minimum design standards for new weirs and culverts to provide for fish passage. Passive flap gates will be a non-complying activity. Regional councils will be required to gain information on current structures and adopt work programmes to address barriers to fish migration.
- Until 31 December 2024, resource consents will be required for:
- land-use change of more than 10 hectares to dairy
- land-use change of more than 10 hectares from woody vegetation or forestry to pastoral farming
- increases in irrigated pasture for dairy farming above 10 hectares
- increase in winter forage cropping area above annual highest 2014/15 – 2018/19
- increase in dairy support activities above highest annual 2014/15 – 2018/19
- From July 2021, there will be a national maximum of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer application of 190kg of nitrogen per hectare per year for dairy, dairy support, sheep, beef, deer farming. Dairy farmers must report applied amount to councils.
- From winter 2021, if you are winter grazing on areas that exceed the following thresholds, you will be require a resource consent:
- less than 50 hectares or 10% of property area (whichever is larger) is used for winter grazing
- minimum setback of five metres from waterways
- average slope of paddock 10 degrees or less
- Farm plans will be required for:
- pastoral farming totalling 20 hectares or more
- arable farming totalling 20 hectares or more
- horticulture totalling 5 hectares or more
- an agricultural purpose prescribed in the regulations (not yet determined)
- any combination of the above uses totalling 20 hectares or more.
- Water users with consents to take water over 5 litres per second will be required to measure water use every 15 minutes and provide electronic records to councils daily.
One
thing that is notably missing is the national bottom lines for Dissolved
Inorganic Nitrogen (DIN). This was
proposed to be a limit of 1 mg/L and caused a huge amount of debate. It has been kicked for touch and the need for
a DIN limit will be reassessed in the future.
Also kicked for touch is water allocation and iwi rights and
interests. This is not a surprise – a
complex, fraught debate that no government to date has had the balls to
address.
The
nitrogen fertiliser cap was one of the quirks.
What they are hoping to achieve with this, I am not sure. You can reduce its use, but to make up the
feed shortfall, supplementary feed is used, which is a form of imported
nitrogen, so you reduce nitrogen in fertiliser only to replace it in imported
feed. Very non-sensical.
So,
what happens next? Some of the specific
regulations are still to be drafted.
This includes the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management
and National Environmental Standards. Councils
must give effect to these new documents by 31 December 2024. It is indicated that there will be
consultation with stakeholder groups (for instance in relation to the
requirements for mandatory farm plans with freshwater modules), but the
regulations are due to be presented to Cabinet for consideration in July, so
there is not a lot of time. As if often
the case, the devil can be in the detail, so there may still be some sting in
the tail in the drafting of the regulations.
Watch this space.
Keri Johnston - Irricon Resource Solutions