TRC policy delay will harm Taranaki

The Taranaki Regional Council’s suggestion to postpone the public notification processes of the Proposed Regional Freshwater and Land Plan would "delay the much needed policy until after 2020 and cause irreparable harm to rivers, wetlands and soils in Taranaki" say community watchdog Climate Justice Taranaki.

The review of the current plan, published in 2001, is already years overdue. It fails to address the key issues of contaminant discharge into waterways from intensive dairy farming and other industries. It fails to address growing water allocation demand brought on by climate change, impacts from oil and gas activities and protection of our dwindling freshwater and wetland ecosystems.

The draft revised plan, while far from perfect, offers a platform for improvements, such as requiring farm effluents to be discharged to land rather than to waterways and completion of riparian planting and fencing by 2020, although the proposed date is three years behind central government advice. Council should incorporate stakeholders’ inputs, notably those already received from district councils, the District Health Board, Fish and Game, iwi and others, to produce a proposed plan for public notification by December as planned so that broad-based public inputs can be brought in effectively.

The National Policy Statement (NPS) on Freshwater requires regional councils to fully implement the NPS no later than the end of 2025. Delaying the public notification of the proposed plan till 2020 suggests that council is not serious about public inputs or making sure that there is adequate time for its full implementation in accordance with the NPS. Critically, the delay would also have serious implications on a number of oil and gas activities which do not fall under the NPS but urgently need to be better aligned with district council processes, as advised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Furthermore, TRC are claiming that a delay is okay because the recent State of the Environment Report declared Taranaki waters to be of a "high quality". The report came under fire though from some of NZ's leading freshwater scientists who say TRC uses poor monitoring methods, is massively shifting their baselines and grossly misinterpreting crucial data.

"TRC are bowing to greedy industry demands over the real needs of our communities and the environment. We have less than 8% of our original wetlands left, which are the breeding grounds of many fish and birds and a natural control system for floods and droughts. 74% of our native freshwater fish, mussels and crayfish are already threatened with extinction and the world is losing 75 billion tonnes of soil worth US$400 billion dollars per year. People and the environment cannot afford to delay this crucial policy. We need to urgently tell TRC to stop bowing to short-sighted and destructive industries. Do not delay the Freshwater and Land Management Plan." concluded Emily Bailey for Climate Justice Taranaki.

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