Govt: Q and A - Decisions of freshwater NPS
Q&As
1. What is today’s
announcement about?
Today we have announced a
package of measures to ensure that fresh water quality
improves over time so that 90 per cent of our rivers and
lakes are swimmable by 2040.
Changes to the National
Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2014
include:
- clearer requirements for regional councils to
improve water quality
- requiring regional councils to
report on contributions to achieving national swimmability
targets every five years
- clarification on how regional
councils should consider economic matters in setting their
regional plans
- more detail on monitoring for freshwater
and better processes regarding measuring water quality
including macroinvertebrates and nutrient levels in
waterways.
Yesterday, $44 million of new funding was also
announced for 33 projects from the Government’s Freshwater
Improvement Fund.
2. What is the National
Policy Statement for Freshwater
Management?
National policy statements are
issued by central government to provide direction to local
government about matters of national significance. The
National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2014
(NPS-FM) is about recognising the national significance of
fresh water and Te Mana o te Wai (the mana of the water). It
provides direction about how local authorities should carry
out their responsibilities under the Resource Management Act
for managing fresh water.
The Government consulted on
proposed amendments to the NPS-FM in March/April 2017.
Public submissions have been considered and decisions made
about the final amendments to the NPS-FM. This will detail
the required process for how improvements are made to water
quality to meet the new national targets.
3. What
has changed since the consultation?
Regional
councils now need to show how they will contribute to the
overall target of 90 per cent of New Zealand’s lakes and
rivers being swimmable by 2040 and to set regional targets
for getting there.
This includes identifying the lakes
and rivers people use for recreation, and sharing what
improvements will be made and how they will be achieved.
Regional councils will need to report on their progress
every five years.
There was no legal requirement in the
old NPS to improve water quality for primary contact
(swimming). The standard was set at secondary contact
(wadeable) and was measured as a median of less than 1000
E.coli/100ml. The new policy removes references to
secondary contact and focusses on improving primary contact
with a median of less than 130 E.coli/100ml. There
was a non-regulatory reference to primary contact in the old
NPS with two gradings and only one statistical test (95th
percentile) and no sampling requirement. In changing to a
regulatory requirement, the new NPS uses five gradings, four
statistical tests and requires a sampling regime.
Much of
the detail of the proposals has been clarified and made more
robust so regional councils and others are clear on what
they need to do to improve fresh water quality. Better
monitoring and reporting is needed to enable us to track
progress over time.
4. Who has had input into
these changes?
We received more than 9000
submissions, and we have taken a lot of advice from experts
to get this right, including the Land and Water Forum and
the Government’s Chief Science Advisor. We have listened
carefully to the feedback we have received.
5. How are you going to make real
improvements?
We are introducing an ambitious
package of measures to make sure that fresh water quality
improves. In particular, the requirement that communities
will continue to improve water quality to achieve the 2030
and 2040 targets mean we will see real and ongoing
improvements for our rivers and lakes over the next 15-25
years.
6. Are the standards stricter now?
The new
standards are based on a different approach to measuring the
health risks of swimming in rivers and lakes. We are
confident that the standards are set at the right levels and
are designed to protect public health.
The previous
grades set a national bottom line of “wadeable” or
“secondary contact” that councils needed to meet, but
there was no requirement for councils to improve beyond
that. Now there is a requirement for councils to improve all
rivers and lakes so they are suitable for swimming or
primary contact more often. We think this is a good
approach.
7. What about the ecological health of
waterways?
We have clarified and added detail on
how councils should manage the ecological health of their
water bodies. Councils will need to use the
Macroinvertebrate Community Index to assess ecosystem health
and must take action to improve waterways that are degraded
or degrading. There is also a stronger direction to manage
nutrients in rivers and their impact on lakes and estuaries.
8. What requirements are there for economic
factors to be considered?
The changes announced
clarify for councils that, when setting freshwater
objectives and limits, they should consider their
communities’ economic wellbeing, within environmental
limits.
9. What about the new stock exclusion
rules?
Work on the detail of the stock exclusion
regulations is ongoing.
10. How
long will councils have to identify their priorities and
implement them?
Regional councils will now need
to provide draft targets for their region by March 2018 and
final targets will need to be in place by December 2018.
This gives councils more time to talk to their communities
about which rivers and lakes – both large and small –
are most important for them to be able to swim in and by
when.
11. What does this mean for your region?
We’ll be talking to councils and other groups
in the coming weeks about the support they’ll need to
implement the changes. There is a lot to do and we’re
committed to working closely with the key people –
communities and partners – to make sure the implementation
goes as smoothly as
possible.