Work to mitigate high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in their waterways has earned a sub-catchment group in the Tukituki a top accolade.
Tukipo Catchment Care Group (TCCG) in Central Hawke’s Bay, the first of 17 community-led sub-catchments in the Tukituki, recently won the inaugural East Coast Catchment Group Award at the Ballance Farm Environment Awards.
The TCCG, which is in southwest Hawke’s Bay, was initially formed in 2018 by local farmer Rob Barry to bring farmers and landowners together to work collaboratively.
Current chairman of the group, Colin Tyler, says today 90 percent of the landowners across the Tukipo sub-catchment are involved. “This includes life-stylers and a diverse range of farming and growing operations from sheep, beef, deer, dairy and poultry, to viticulture and arable.”
The TCCG, with initial funding from Fonterra and more recent funding from the Ministry for the Environment’s (MFE) Freshwater Improvement Fund, have built a large-scale wetland. Called “White’s Wetland” in a nod to the farm it is on, the wetland is being used to monitor the impacts on nutrient reduction, water quality and biodiversity enhancement projects.
Riparian planting and fencing, pest control and further wetland construction is also happening across the Catchment with key advice and support from local ecologist Kay Griffiths.
Over time, Tyler says the MFE funding means “we’ll get some 60,000-plus plants in the ground over 22,000 hectares”.
In addition to wetland and on-going planting work, the Catchment group has held a series of workshops, organised hunting competitions for pest control and established a nursery using locally-sourced seed.
As a result of the Ballance Awards win, the group will get a visit and some free advice from Landcare staff “to inform their next steps and help determine other opportunities to support farmers who are improving their environmental footprint”.
https://nzfeawards.org.nz/2022-award-recipients-list/
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An alternative for the Big dam in the Tukituki river?
The most common methods and proposals to have more access to water is by building a big dam in a river, or creating holding ponds.
The same result can be achieved by building a lot of very small permeable dams in the river; they are usually called a weir. This is mimicking what a river already does. In heavy rainfall the water would build up before each small permeable dam of saw about 1 to 1.5 m high and overflow when the top is reached. When the rain stops the weir slowly releases its water, and the surrounding area upstream soaks up the water in the soil. Thus we have created a water storage that slowly releases it water over time. Now, if each than can hold the water back for a week, than 50 dams hold it theoretically back for a year. The beneficial side effects are that it reduces the chance of a flash flood and creates recreate wetlands that we have lost in the past.
If we build these weirs in the upper regions of the river catchment area, than we get the maximum benefit with the minimum amount of impact on productive land. Building each of these weirs can be done by using the readably available river stones. The stones can be held together in a net structure, or a cage. If we start building the weirs in the upper regions of the river we can slowly progress downstream while assessing the impact, and fine tuning the methods and structure.
The cost of each weirs would be very small, and the total cost compared to a big dam would be still a lot less in my estimation.
Of course such an idea needs further researching and an assessment of the local impact and possibilities needs to be undertaken.