Greenpeace Aotearoa has written to Gore District Mayor Ben Bell to extend an invitation to work together on combatting drinking water nitrate contamination. This follows the organisation’s protest in Gore in late July when nitrate levels in the town water supply exceeded safe limits.

Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Will Appelbe says "What Gore’s drinking water crisis highlights is something that we’ve known for a long time - we cannot allow unchecked dairy industry pollution to continue."

"The intensive dairy industry, led by Fonterra, is contaminating rural people’s drinking water, and they are refusing to take responsibility for their actions. Meanwhile communities like Gore are left to pick up the cost in the form of unsafe drinking water."

The letter from Greenpeace outlines the organisation's public health concerns over the unsafe levels of nitrate in Gore’s water supply, and subsequent comments from Mayor Ben Bell which called the current limit for nitrate in drinking water a ‘safe level’.

A growing body of scientific evidence has linked several health risks with much lower levels of nitrate contamination. Long-term exposure to levels of nitrate as low as 1 mg/L has been linked to an increased risk of bowel cancer. And if pregnant people drink water with nitrate levels of 5 mg/L, there is increased risk of preterm birth.

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Appelbe says "Everyone should be able to safely drink the water coming out of their kitchen tap, but thanks to the intensive dairy industry - led by companies like Fonterra - the health of communities in places like Gore is being put at risk."

"New Zealand is at the knife-edge of corporate greed. The intensive dairy industry is destroying lakes, rivers, and drinking water to make as much money as they can, and everyone else bears the cost with polluted drinking water and inflated dairy prices."

"We’ve invited the Mayor to work together with us to protect source water and ensure that crises like what we’ve seen in Gore in recent weeks don’t happen again."

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