Freshwater in the Horizons Region

May 2022, Oranga Wai | Our Freshwater Future edition

This newsletter explores the health of our region’s waterways, work underway to improve freshwater, and how you can be involved. It also includes updated National Environment Standards information in regards to intensive winter grazing and synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use. 

As Horizons progresses towards notifying a revised One Plan as part of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, we will be seeking your input through various rounds of engagement. This includes setting long-term visions, or aspirational statements, for each of our proposed Freshwater Management Units. We have suggested several different goals which together could form a vision and are now asking whether you think we have these right, or if we are missing something. Click here to share your thoughts with us by 5pm, Tuesday 24 May 2022. 

Please share this newsletter with anyone you think would be interested. Click here if you would like to sign up to our Oranga Wai newsletter to receive freshwater related updates.

FRESHWATER AT HORIZONS 

We all need and interact with water, water is life, so the concepts and policies talked about in this newsletter apply to everyone. This includes having your say in how freshwater is managed. We are currently seeking your feedback on visions for freshwater.

Horizons works in partnership with our communities to protect and enhance the region’s waterways.

These waterways are a vital resource; they are crucial to our environmental, economic, social and cultural wellbeing. In 2020, the national direction for protecting, enhancing and preventing further damage to waterways was announced by the Minister for the Environment. This policy package, known nationally as Essential Freshwater, signalled where changes to freshwater management were required. At Horizons, we are calling this programme Oranga Wai | Our Freshwater Future. A significant part of this work requires a revision to Horizons’ One Plan, the document that determines resource management for the region. We are partnering with tangata whenua and are actively engaging with our communities and stakeholders to determine our regional direction for freshwater. There will be lots of opportunities for you to provide your views between now and 2024, when proposed changes to the One Plan will be notified and formal submissions can be made.

The National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 provides a hierarchy for caring about water. Alongside Te Mana o te Wai, this will guide our revised One Plan work and means:

1. the health and wellbeing of waterbodies and freshwater ecosystems comes first;

2. followed by the health needs of people (such as drinking water); and

3. the ability of people and communities to provide for their social, economic and cultural wellbeing, now and in the future.

Te Mana o te Wai describes the fundamental importance of water and recognises that protecting the health of freshwater, protects the health and wellbeing of people and the wider environment.

Te Mana o te Wai is about putting the water first and thinking about it in a holistic way. Working in partnership with tangata whenua, a local understanding of how Te Mana o te Wai applies to water bodies and freshwater ecosystems in the region is being developed. There will be local variations and nuances across Freshwater Management Units or FMUs (see below). You can read the current definition for our regionhere on our Oranga Wai website.

WHAT'S A FRESHWATER MANAGEMENT UNIT?

Inside this newsletter, you will notice we have divided the region differently to district boundaries. Instead, we show the region as seven Freshwater Management Units (FMUs). Each FMU has its own waterways – lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, and wetlands. FMUs are based on river catchments and communities of interest with each having their own set of unique landscapes, layouts, concerns, and issues. Examining the health of waterways through FMUs helps us to understand the pressures on them, all the way from the mountains to the sea - ki uta ki tai. To find out about the current state of freshwater in your FMU click here to view story maps of all seven provisional FMUs on our Oranga Wai website. Grouping freshwater elements together is an effective way of determining the best policies and limits to place on each FMU. It also directs the scientific questions we need to ask to inform pathways for immediate and longer-term improvements to freshwater.

It’s important to note that these are only provisional FMUs and may change in the future based on feedback

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN YOUR FMU?

We want you to have your say in the management of freshwater. To do this it can be helpful to understand the current state of freshwater in your area or Freshwater Management Unit (FMU). Ecosystem health is the overall measure of health for a waterway. Every river has its own ecosystem – the area in and around the river where animals and other living things live; it is influenced by the climate, the shape and type of land around it. This system is in a delicate balance of factors to sustain it. We are part of that ecosystem.

If one thing in the ecosystem is out of balance or grows in its influence, the ecosystem can be very badly affected. To examine the ecosystem health of rivers and streams (tributaries) in each FMU, Horizons’ staff survey, sample and measure a variety of biological, chemical and ecological factors within the river. This includes fish species, insects and other animals around or in the river, the oxygen in the water for fish to breathe and the nitrogen that makes it toxic, the plant life within the river, and the soil/sand/sediment being washed into the waterways from the land. Collectively these are called attributes. These attributes are grouped (water quality, aquatic life, and ecosystem processes) to build a picture of ecosystem health. This all makes up an assessment of the ecosystem in each FMU so we can see the pressures on the water to sustain the life around it.

Horizons Regional Council is collecting your visions for freshwater in the Freshwater Management Units (FMUs) you live, work and play in. We’ve drafted some ideas to help guide you with building your own visions, have your say and share how you envision the future of freshwater. Click here to complete the survey online.

Following this engagement, we will collate the feedback and report back on the information received, it will be used to inform our policy and planning provisions in the One Plan when we start the review process.

Horizons Regional Council is working collaboratively with Post-Settlement Governance Entities in the region for Treaty river settlements. This is to ensure our work supports the objectives of the strategies being developed under Te Awa Tupua for the Whanganui River. This is also the same for the Whangaehu FMU to ensure our work supports the objectives of the strategies being developed under Te Waiū o te Ika for the Whangaehu River.

If you want a copy of any of the documents mentioned in this newsletter, would like to provide feedback, or want a printed copy of the visions engagement you can call us on freephone 0508 800 800, email info@ourfreshwaterfuture.nz or write to us at Private Bag 11025, Manawatū Mail Centre, Palmerston North 4442.

Intensive winter grazing update

Regulations to better control the effects of intensive winter grazing were introduced in the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater (NES-F) 2020, as part of the Essential Freshwater reforms. 

The updated regulations (regarding slope, pugging, subsurface drains, re-sowing and critical source areas) now come into effect from 1 November 2022 and will not impact the 2022 winter grazing season. Those planning intensive winter grazing operations for the 2023 season onwards, however, will need to become familiar with the new intensive winter grazing regulations and requirements. Existing use rights may not be available for the 2023 season and practices will need to be adjusted to comply with the new regulations.

These rules apply to you if your property includes five hectares or more of horticulture, 20 hectares or more of pasture or arable crops, or 20 hectares or more of a combination of any of these.

We’re working through the requirements and implications for monitoring and enforcement, however, we also encourage all landowners to become familiar with what is needed. A good starting point is our factsheet which has a summary of key information and definitions.

We will be updating the information we have as soon as further guidance is available. We encourage farmers to begin preparing for these regulations.

Synthetic nitrogen fertiliser limit and reporting

New rules in place
Horizons would like to remind farmers that under the new National Environmental Standards for synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use there is now a limit to the amount that can be applied to pastoral land. There is also now a requirement for dairy farmers to report their synthetic nitrogen use to regional councils.

All farmers
The amount of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser you apply to pastoral land cannot exceed 190 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year.

Dairy farmers 
Need to report your synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use to Horizons Regional Council annually. Submit your first report by 31 July 2022 – we’ll be in touch soon about how to do this.

We’re here to help
For more information about these rules, visit here or call the rural advice team on 0508 800 800.

Overseer review

We’d like to remind farmers that due to the Overseer review we still do not require annual nutrient budgets for the end of this season for those with intensive land use consents. However you are still encouraged to keep records of the data and information you have previously used to input into the Overseer model, and to continue meeting your consent conditions including all mitigations proposed.

Installing culverts

Fish need to be able to move between freshwater habitats to access feeding and spawning environments and maintain viable populations. Structures such as culverts can delay or prevent fish movement and stop them from accessing critical habitats.

If you are thinking of installing a culvert on your property, remember that the NES-F requires applicants to provide information about the structure to their regional council. In some cases resource consents are required if structures are unable to meet certain criteria to help enable fish passage.

NIWA has developed a Fish Passage Assessment Tool app that can be used to record information about these structures. The app provides a standardised way to record data on the characteristics of instream structures and assess those structures’ accessibility for fish, which is also information we require if you need a consent and can be downloaded at a later date. We encourage landowners to use this app which as it’s a great way to keep national information on river connectivity and potential fish passage barriers, as well as efforts to remediate them.