Urgent debate needed on lake water quality
Thursday, 11 November 2010, 12:54 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Labour Party
11 November 2010 **Media Statement
**
**Urgent debate needed on lake water quality
**
Labour’s Environment spokesperson Charles Chauvel is seeking an urgent debate in Parliament today on a National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research study that shows deteriorating lake water quality in New Zealand.
“The quality of our lakes is of immense environmental and economic importance to New Zealand,” Charles Chauvel said in his letter to Speaker Dr Lockwood Smith requesting the debate. “Water is fundamental to our economic development and the New Zealand way of life.
“The NIWA report concludes that over a third of New Zealand’s lakes are in an unhealthy condition which impacts on normal ecological functions and could affect commercial and recreational use.”
Labour’s Water spokesperson Brendon Burns said today that Environment Minister Nick Smith needs to use the NIWA report as a “dam” to hold back the ambitions of some cabinet colleagues for rapid growth in intensive farming.
The NIWA report has found that there are more lakes with deteriorating water quality than there are with improving quality, Brendon Burns said. “Dr Smith’s response is that the report sounds a warning that New Zealand cannot take its clean, green image for granted.
“It certainly does that, but Dr Smith needs to ensure that the warning actually makes itself heard to Prime Minister John Key and the cabinet,” Brendon Burns said. “Last month in Parliament, when I questioned Dr Smith, he pretended not to be aware that John Key has said he wants to see new water allocations in place in Canterbury and possibly Otago next year.
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“Yet he knows very well that he cannot get any new environmental controls in place by then to ensure that new water allocations don’t contribute to further deterioration in water quality in lakes and other waterways,” Brendon Burns said.
"Lake quality is affected by what trickles and surges into them from our streams and rivers. Until we get real controls with accompanying penalties, we will continue to see poor water quality. Dr Smith points to improvements in lake water quality in areas like the Rotorua lakes, but that is the result of funding put in place by the previous Labour Government.”
ENDS
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