Dairy NZ is accusing Environment Southland of using too broad a brush to paint an unfairly negative picture in a recent water quality report.
In the report, titled Our Ecosystems, the report’s water quality index suggests 89 per cent of rivers and streams in Southland have a poor or very poor quality rating.
However, Dairy NZ water quality scientist, Shirley Hayward, says the water quality index is misleading, unfairly targets dairying, and is disconnected from Environment Southland’s raw data.
"Where those water bodies are actually showing water quality degradation or degraded biological communities, lets identify the issues that are causing that and take actions to address it.
"So we want to see something more strategic, something more focused, that links actual problems with actions that can be taken to resolve the issues, rather than broad sweeping statements about poor water quality across the region, land use intensification being the cause – lets be more strategic about it."
Shirley Hayward says the report shows nitrogen leaking in most streams does not pose a risk to fish and invertebrates, and that the focus should be on phosphorous mitigation.
However, Environment Southland disagrees.
Environment Southland Senior Scientist Jane Kitson says the water quality index is actually an index more about the performance of the water plan itself.
" It doesn’t actually link to dairy farming so I’m a bit interested that she has jumped to that conclusion.
"It’s more looking at how we measure up with the four variables that we state in the water plan, that we’ve declared we will improve by 10 percent in lowland, hill and spring-fed water bodies."
Earlier this year, Fonterra, Dairy NZ and Environment Southland launched a programme to try and reduce the impact dairying is having in the Waituna Lagoon in Southland.
At the time of the launch, Dairy NZ sustainability team leader, Dr Mike Scarsbrook, told Country 99TV they were working to reduce the impact of the 40 dairy farms in the catchment.
He said the Southland community was demanding the region’s dairy farmers look at their practices and do better.
