If you want a truly depressing read, try Our Freshwater 2023, a report just released by the Ministry for the Environment.
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.
Here are just a few of the alarming measures of the state of our rivers, lakes and groundwater.
- 45% of Aotearoa New Zealand’s total river length was not suitable for activities like swimming between 2016 and 2020, based on having an average Campylobacter infection risk greater than 3 percent.
- For E. coli, trends at 37% of river monitoring sites were improving (declining concentrations), and 41% were worsening (increasing concentrations) between 2001 and 2020, while trends at 18% of groundwater monitoring sites were improving, and 50% were worsening between 2009 and 2018.
- For MCI, trends at 56% of river monitoring sites were worsening, and 25% were improving, between 2001 and 2020. The macroinvertebrate community index (MCI) is a measure of the abundance and diversity of macroinvertebrates and is an indicator of overall river health.
- For nitrate-nitrogen, trends at 49% of groundwater monitoring sites were improvng, 35% were worsening between 2009 and 2018. 19% failed to meet the nitrate-nitrogen drinking water standard on at least one occasion, measuring over the Ministry of Health accepted value of 11.8/gm3. [Note that many public health officials and environmentalist content this standard is far too high, jeopardising human health for many rural water users in particular. Very high levels have been reported in CHB wells.]
- 36% of lake monitoring sites improved and 45% worsened between 2011 and 2020 (according to trophic level index (TLI) scores, a measure of ecosystem health based on nutrient and algae levels). Modeling of these scores for all lakes larger than 1 hectare suggest 46% had poor or very poor health between 2016 and 2020; only 2% rated good or very good.
- Data suggests 48% of the country’s river network is at least partially inaccessible to migratory fish – and the figure may be higher. A further 36% have not yet been assessed for barriers and could be potentially inaccessible.
- Wastewater service suppliers reported more than 4,200 overflows due to wet weather events, or blockages and failures during dry weather in the year ending 30 June 2021. However, it is likely that this number is under reported.
- Almost half (47 percent) of publicly owned wastewater treatment plants discharge treated wastewater to rivers and lakes, while the remainder discharge it into the sea or onto land (DIA, 2018). Many industrial facilities, like meat and dairy processing plants, also operate wastewater plants that discharge into freshwater.
The report is exhaustive in describing the full range of impacts – from human health threats to compromised food gathering to species loss – associated with these trends.
Whether one is looking at soil loss, specific contaminant levels, or overall scores like MCI and TLI, the worst conditions are found at monitoring sites with higher proportions of human modified land cover in the upstream catchment area.
The report says: “Analyses of national river water quality monitoring data for 2016 to 2020 show that water quality is more degraded when there is more high-intensity pasture and horticultural land upstream.” And notes: “Aotearoa has experienced one of the highest rates of agricultural land intensification over recent decades internationally.”
The intensity of agriculture has increased since the 1980s particularly due to a switch from sheep to dairy farming. Dairy cattle numbers increased by 61% between 1996 and 2014, before falling 5% by 2018.
In a comment especially pertinent given HB’s recent flooding, the Report says:
“On-farm mitigations like fertiliser management and protecting waterways from livestock reduced the amount of phosphorus and sediment that reached our rivers between 1995 and 2015, but not nitrogen. While the mitigations were estimated to reduce nitrogen losses from individual farms, this was not enough to offset the effects of the expansion of dairy and intensification of pastoral agriculture, which resulted in an increase in the nitrogen that reached our rivers during this period.”
In NZ, most phosphorus enters rivers attached to eroded sediment. Post-cyclone freshwater monitoring by HBRC is certain to show elevated levels of both phosphorus and nitrogen.
Like all regional councils, our HBRC is mandated by the government’s National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPS) to notify a water plan for the entire region by December 2024 that will give effect to the NPS-FM 2020 by the end of December 2025.
And that plan must implement these priorities, in this order:
First, the health and well-being of water bodies and freshwater ecosystems;
Second, the health needs of people (such as drinking water);
Third, the ability of people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural well-being, now and in the future.
The NPS requires local authorities to, “Ensure that the health and well-being of degraded water bodies and freshwater ecosystems is improved, and the health and well-being of all other water bodies and freshwater ecosystems is maintained and (if communities choose) improved.” It is quite prescriptive as to how this must be accomplished.
HBRC has already begun a broad public consultation for its plan, called Kotahi.
Can it get worse?
The worsening trends cited above relate to the ‘customary’ nasties our regulators and public health officials have traditionally worried about. And some of those measures, like nitrate concentrations in groundwater, are already controversial.
But consider these two further observations by the Report about microplastics and “emerging contaminants”. Farming intensification is not the only ‘villain’.
“Microplastics are generally defined as plastic particles that are less than 5 millimetres in diameter. Microplastics have been found in urban streams in Aotearoa and are often transported via smaller urban streams. A survey across 52 urban streams in Aotearoa found microplastics in samples from all sites.”
And …
“Emerging contaminants are non-natural chemicals in the environment that have not been extensively monitored, and whose potential effects on human health and the environment are not well understood. Over 700 different compounds are classified as potential emerging contaminants including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and personal care product additives (like shampoo preservatives), and industrial compounds such as flame retardants.”
When it comes to threatening our water quality, we’re all culprits folks!
No surprises there – environmentalists have been shouting this from the rooftops for decades now, and to be fair, new legislation and regulations have been implemented since, but as usual, too little, too late. The government, though, hasn’t realised the urgency (or has deliberately dragged its feet) , hence little, or no, improvement in most kpi’s. We need to wean ourselves off nitrogen now, and not later. As for microplastics (and plastics in general), the government has likewise been tardy in implementing reforms, i.e. the rollback of the plastic container deposit scheme. As usual, the glacial pace of reforms will eventually come to bite us in the posterior.
Is there a suggestion here that farmers are not the only villains in the galaxy?
If so,how novel .