Headline: “Don’t turn the Tukituki toxic” Bill is launched
The “Don’t Turn the Tukituki Toxic” Members Bill has been launched by Labour’s spokesperson on Water, Meka Whaitiri on the banks of the Tukituki River.
The Bill reforms the Resource Management Act to ensure that limits on Nitrogen are taken into account when consents for irrigations projects are being considered.
“For many of my whānau, growing up in the Hawkes Bay, meant swimming and gathering kai from the Tukituki, Ngaruroro and Tutaekuri rivers. We don’t do these things now because our awa (rivers) are sick.
“The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has applied for consents over the Ruataniwha irrigation project to turn the Tukituki toxic. The council wants to set the level of nitrogen in the river at a toxic level.Toxicity means what it says, and our river will be ruined .It’s too important to get wrong.
Supporting Ms Whaitiri, will be Labour’s Conservation spokesperson Ruth Dyson and Environment Spokesperson Moana Mackey.The hapu of local iwi, Ngati Kahungunu with links to the lower reaches of the Tukituki, will accompany the group.
“The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council must come clean to the people of Hawkes Bay and explain what setting nitrogen levels at toxic means. They are happy to talk about jobs without saying what will happen to the river if they add this toxic nitrogen.”
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Pollution has to be placed above politics.
If one river is allowed to be polluted in spite of public concern then every river becomes open season for the ravages of irresponsible over stocking, foolhardy irrigation without cognisance of long term soil damage and adoption of further wasteful animal husbandry.
If suitable land for food production is short then wasting the land by grazing animals is a maladaptive practice. It takes many times the land and water to produce a ton of meat or dairy than a ton of food from plants.
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