EDS moves on stock in streams

The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) is considering going to the Environment Court to get a clear answer on what powers regional councils have to force farmers to fence streams under the provisions of the RMA.

But it seems EDS could probably save themselves the expense of a court case: the Ministry for the Environment told Rural News councils do have the power to make farmers fence streams under the RMA, but most simply haven't incorporated this into their regional plans.

If these provisions aren't already in regional plans it can take years for them to do so.

This is seen by local government as one of the weaknesses of the RMA because it does not allow them to respond to emerging issues in a timely manner.

The Northland Regional Council, which has been criticised for not taking action about cows getting in waterways, says it's planning to begin reviewing its regional plan in June. Riaan Elliot says the present regulatory framework for dealing with such matters is very limited.

"Under the present rules any sort of enforcement action or trying to get farmers to fence their streams would be problematic. However, if it's shown to be a 'significant degradation of water quality' as a result of a specific activity, we can take enforcement action under section 17. But when we are in these 'grey' areas it's quite hard and the threshold is high," he says.

The Southland Regional Council has a rule that limits the grazing of stock within 3m of a lake, river, stream or artificial watercourse when intensive winter grazing is being undertaken. This rule also applies to "significant wetlands".

Environment Canterbury is moving to introduce additional and more stringent rules to keep stock out of waterways from June. The council's director of resource management, Kim Drummond, says the new rules mean that intensively farmed stock or any stock grazed on irrigated land will be prohibited from entering natural waterways.

"There is a real focus in Canterbury of excluding stock from natural waterways in order to improve water quality," he says.

The latest kerfuffle has prompted DairyNZ to issue a statement saying dairy farmers "are on board" in regards to riparian management. Dr Rick Pridmore says the industry has made it clear that it wants to see streams fenced.

"The public does not draw the distinction between beef stock and dairy cows grazed off the home farm. The reality is that when the public see cattle in a river or on an unfenced river bank, dairy farmers cop the flak from that," he says.

If regional councils were to change their rules about fencing streams, they would likely get support from the dairy industry. Fonterra for example has given its farmers until next June to have their waterways fenced.

The difficult question remains as to how far up a catchment fencing rules might apply and whether it would just apply to intensively grazed parts of a farm or the entire farm.