Ed and Chris (also on the community scheme)
holding the drinking water that comes from their tap
On Q&A this morning I talked about case of Edward and Rada Masters. They are older New Zealanders who live south of Kaitaia and get their drinking water from a small community water supply scheme on the Waitapu stream, along with about 30 other people including about 15 children.
They are life members of the local St John's for service to the community, a community where Edward has lived all his life.
I visited them briefly on Thursday when I was in Kaitaia.
Ed Masters in front of his and Rada's lifetime
membership of St Johns for services to the Mangonui
community
Their story is one which shows why we need minimum environmental standards on farming, especially dairy farming.
The farm owner upstream of their community water scheme started to run his stock through the tributaries of the small spring fed creek that used to provide them with clean water. As a result their water became extremely discoloured and undrinkable, no doubt full of sediment and cow faeces.
They asked the farm owner to fence out his cattle from the stream. But he would not.
They asked the Northland Regional Council to step in and make him fence his stream but they said they did not have the power. The NRC did offer to provide an electric fence to keep the cows out of the stream, but still no luck.
They asked Fonterra for help. But they said it wasn't their problem.
Edward and the locals offered to provide the labour to do the fencing for free; but the farm owner said it would still cost him too much to put in three drinking troughs and 400 m of irrigation pipe so his cows could access water - a cost of perhaps $5000.
The farm owner told them this in a letter from his yacht, because he is currently travelling the world on said yacht.
We need environmental minimum standards - fencing, riparian planting, maximum stocking rates, fines linked to milk solid production. And then we need to make recidivist farm owners implement them and if they won't we should fine them till they do it.
Why should Edward and Rada and the rest of their community put up with the shit in their water?
POSTSCRIPT - Talked to Don Nicholson from the Feds after the show this morning and we'll see what we can do. Will keep you posted.
