In article <
82c226b0-c8e8-4089-b59d-5600d2bf163a@googlegroups.com>,
johno1234@gmail.com, JohnO says...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/82572047/Greens-plans-to-wade-int o-river-pollution-issue-curbed-for-safety-reasons
So they plan a publicity stunt in a river that they consider to be an
example of how bad NZ rivers are.
Only this river has only been deemed unsafe for swimming once in three
years of testing and 289 tests! And that testing takes place directly
down stream of a sewerage treatment plant and the one failed test was
right after a heavy ran storm.
Coming on the tails of Material's idiotic "destroy homeowner wealth" announcement and you can see that Labour have chained themselves to an
anchor and thrown it overboard.
I guess slightly OT, but well worth a read is Mike Joy's book, Polluted Inheritance - New Zealand's Freshwater Crisis.
It's only about $5.
For example...
"
Weak targets
Its response to the freshwater crisis was to develop new policy and
legislation euphemistically labelled ?A Fresh Start for Freshwater?. In
2011 a National Policy Statement (NPS) was finally enacted, almost two
decades late (NPSs were supposed to be in place soon after the RMA took
effect in the early 1990s). In 2013?14, supporting guidelines ? the
National Objectives Framework (NOF) ? were implemented. This framework
is designed to provide limits and numbers with the specific goal of
achieving the purposes of the NPS.2
The narrative of the NPS for freshwater raises ambitious expectations
for maintaining or improving freshwater quality, but the numbers and
limits prescribed in the NOF are insufficient to achieve them. Rather,
they allow for still greater deterioration.3 Most of the parameters
previously used to measure the health of freshwaters are not included in
the NOF.4 Instead of supporting the NPS to achieve its goals, it does
the opposite, permitting further deterioration of our freshwater.5
For instance, the NOF includes only one of the two critical nutrients ? nitrogen ? and revealingly allows for new nitrogen loads ten times
greater than previous guidelines, extending even the limits currently
used by many regional councils. Whereas preceding ANZECC guidelines
allowed for levels up to 0.61 mg/l,6 the new bottom-line is 6.9 mg/l.
The NOF also implements new quality bands ? A, B, C and a fail level. To
show just how lax they are, fewer than 1 per cent of the rivers in New
Zealand would breach the new bottom line. In fact, most of them, no
matter how laden with nutrients, still score an A or B.7
Comparison with other countries shows how feeble these limits are. Some
of the world?s most nutrient-polluted rivers ? the Yangtze, for
instance,and the Mississippi ? would, under our government?s new
ranking, score a B. NIWA?s map of nitrate levels reveals that most of
New Zealand?s lowland rivers already exceed ANZECC limits.8 The
weakening of quality thresholds in the NPS appears to be a purely
political response. The government has shifted the goalposts in order to
make our freshwater look healthier than it is, effectively making the
current state of rivers the baseline.
"
--
Duncan.
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