Water quality a shared problem

Revelations that discharges from a Palmerston North City Council wastewater plant city are polluting the Manawatu River and have been for the last seven years, is a reminder to critics of the dairy industry that water pollution is a shared problem and so are the solutions, says Labour's Agriculture spokesperson Damien O'Connor.

"The dairy industry has taken a lot of flak over this issue. Now we have the very people who have held those farmers accountable in the past breaching their own discharge consents.

"Perhaps they should have ensured their own effects on water quality were properly mitigated before getting too righteous," Damien O'Connor said.
"Certainly I agree there is an urgent need to improve the quality of many of our waterways, but the solution can't rest only with farmers. Just as they are expected to invest in adequate effluent management systems so too should New Zealand's cities and towns be expected to invest in theirs.

"The fact that National scrapped support for small communities to upgrade sewage systems doesn't remove the obligation on councils to deal with pollution of their own making, yet it appears in this case the council is to escape penalty.

"This is a timely reminder that water pollution isn't just a farming problem but one that's shared across various sectors. It is also a reminder that a cooperative approach to water quality will be more productive than a critical one," Damien O'Connor said.

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