Gore’s brown trout statue has become the latest victim of dairy industry pollution. On Tuesday night, the iconic statue was given cartoon-style crosses for eyes - Greenpeace Aotearoa’s way of spotlighting the town’s drinking water crisis and the role of dairy pollution in poisoning it.

Greenpeace has also rebranded the ‘Welcome to Gore’ sign, which now reads ‘Welcome to Gore - where dirty dairy wrecked the water’.

Last Friday, residents of Gore were issued a do-not-drink notice after their town water supply exceeded 11.3 mg/L of nitrate, which is the legal limit set in the 1950s to avoid blue baby syndrome. While this notice has since been lifted, Greenpeace warns that it is only a matter of time before this happens again.

Greenpeace spokesperson Will Appelbe says "The dirty dairy industry has wrecked Gore’s drinking water, putting people’s health at risk due to nitrate contamination. It is unacceptable that this community is increasingly unable to drink the water coming out of their kitchen taps. Gore’s giant brown trout statue is now a beacon of the industry’s pollution of drinking water."

A growing body of scientific evidence has linked several health risks with long term exposure to nitrate at levels below the current legal limits. Long-term exposure to nitrate in drinking water at levels as low as 1 mg/L has been linked to an increased risk of bowel cancer, and this risk increases with higher levels of nitrate. At levels of nitrate above 5 mg/L, the New Zealand College of Midwives advises pregnant people to consider an alternative source of drinking water, because of an increased risk of preterm birth.

Appelbe says, " Two years ago, we offered free nitrate tests to Gore residents, and found that 45% of the samples we tested from the town supply were above 4 mg/L of nitrate. Since then, levels of nitrate contamination have more than doubled, to above 10 mg/L.

"This problem isn’t going to go away simply by diluting the water - for many rural communities, nitrate contamination will get worse unless action is taken to address the source of the pollution: the intensive dairy industry, led by Fonterra.

"There are too many cows and the industry is using too much synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. Nitrate contamination across the country is increasing as a result, particularly in rural areas.

"We need regional councils and the Government to take action now. But instead of protecting people’s drinking water, Luxon’s Government is attempting to weaken freshwater protections. They’ve proposed removing the cap on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, which will enable dairy expansion. That means more cows, more fertiliser, and ultimately more contaminated drinking water."

Greenpeace is calling on the Government to scrap its proposed changes to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management and the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater, which are currently going through consultation. The organisation says that these changes will make freshwater pollution worse, impacting lakes, rivers, and drinking water across the country.

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