Making every water body swimmable is ‘not practical’ – Nick Smith
Neither a rap nor bible verse could sway Environment Minister Nick Smith to consider making waterways swimmable.Smith visited Palmerston North on Thursday as part the Government’s nationwide fresh water consultation, the night before a new five-year plan to clean up the Manawatu River was due to be released.
As the meeting turned over to the public for questions, a range were posed of the minister ranging from swimmable waterways and the Shannon wastewater treatment plant, to a protest rap, and a reading of a few verses from the book of Genesis.
Smith fielded several questions on why the Government was not aiming for swimmable waterways.
Each time, he responded that it simply was not “practical”.
“I do not think a legal requirement for every water body in New Zealand to be swimmable is practical.”
After cheerleading for the dairy intensification that now sees many dairy farms drowning in debt, Nick says it’s not ‘practical’ to ensure our rivers can be swam in.
Did a little bit of you die when you read that NZ?
This is the NZ National voters have built.
The Greens seem to be missing in action here. The Head of Hufflepuff, James Shaw (aka Dr Invisible) looks like a possum stuck in the headlights most interviews. I don’t want to sound like a trolls troll but the Greens communications and political strategy looks as flat footed as a duck. The Wellington clique who are running the Green Party now are great at alienating people on twitter, but don’t seem to be so sharp when it comes to making political gains.
Meanwhile our rivers run brown with cow shit so National Party voters can drown in debt.
Great work NZ.
Did a little bit of you die when you read that NZ?
Nope
Do you hate NZ and its people? Why don’t you care Beatty?
cause he/she is a traitor and foreigner.
A lot of me has died in the past 7 years of plunder of NZ’s so called ‘clean green’ image. What a joke. Now they are going for the kermedic’s – ‘there’s oil in them thar’ marine reserves’!
What part of f**k off don’t they understand?
Yep, very true.
Indeed, it did.
Only a blinkered National/ACT supporter could listen to Smith utter those depressing words and not be moved to anger.
With that statement, we can mark the date that we officially abandoned any pretense at being “clean and green and 100% Pure”.
This is what one million New Zealanders have voted for.
NatZ are well choreograthered by Warner Brothers that’s why the nasty NatZ used a NZ taxpayer $30M bribe to keep Warner in NZ of course.
This government are corrupt to the core.
Vote them out next year folks.
Hear hear Cleangreen !!!!
How can any water anywhere in N.Z. be safe when rain water shows positive tests for heavy metals?
https://chemtrailsnorthnz.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/timaru-rainwater-found-to-contain-high-levels-of-aluminium-barium/
Nick Smith – the fall guy for those who would conspire.
Please don’t confuse the issue by referring to the idiocy of chemtrails. The pollution is NZ rivers is caused by inappropriate farming methods and dirty industry.
FYI aluminium is the commonest metals found all over the earth. Of course it’s going to be in rain water. It has been for millennium and still all of life survived.
I’m skeptical about “chemtrails”, but I’m pretty sure a lab test of rainwater should not be finding barium or strontium. If the lab that performed these tests is credible, surely it warrants further investigation by both public health and environmental health agencies?
That’s why John key drags these corpses like Smith and Collins back from the dead.
Three Nat MP’s [Smith, Naylor,McKelvie] went for a short dip in the Manawatu river…but only after the regional council had fully tested the water…so folks if you want to go swimming, no problem simply take a Regional Council water testing team with you…and to think that the local paper [Manawatu Standard] gave this PR photo opportunity space…I’m astounded that we have not offered water from the Manawatu river free to a Chinese company to export to China…maybe water could replace dairy products.
Nick Smith was on the news last night saying it was ridiculous to charge foreign companies for the New Zealand water they were extracting and bottling for free, and then selling overseas for millions of dollars. I think what he actually meant was hell will freeze over before the National government will ask one of its biggest donors, Oravida, to pay a fair price for an extremely valuable resource they are getting for nothing.
dairy industry externalized their pollution costs to the public commons and now there broke the clean up is in the to hard basket that means there industry was never viable to start with. there should be no bailout for the farmers
This is a pretty hardline, akin to saying no “bailouts” for the bludging unemployed. I think a sensible bailout would aim to keep the fertile foodbaskets of Aotearoa in local ownership, and encourage an evidence-based transition to more diverse and sustainable farming methods. The state could pay off farmers’ debt, and hold that equity in farmland as an asset, and a long-term investment. Farmers could buy the state share in their land back at a rate that they can afford, and continue managing the property, but with guidance from environmentally-educated farming consultants, funded overseen by a cooperative effort involving MFAT, MfE, and other relevant public bodies.
is strategic default an option for indebted new zealanders ????????/
did anyone pick up on the report out Australia regarding ponzi finance scam by the big four banks rapidly revaluing homes to ramp up the values http://www.businessinsider.com.au/a-hedge-fund-manager-posing-as-a-home-buyer-says-he-was-shown-the-tricks-for-white-lies-on-mortgage-applications-2016-2
I watch the flash shiny new 4WD cars that will never go off road charge through clogged Wellington streets. Filled with suits and designer skirts IPhone call types. Purchased by extending the credit against a housing bubble. Cash flow courtesy of an associated dairy bubble. Bring in immigrants to provide “growth”, print cash, build houses for them that need wood and water.. need I go on?
Dirty rivers are the expression of our sick economy that eats the future to enable today’s consumption. Farmers externalities costs reflect their corporate financiers on Queen St. We are all soiled by each grubby purchase of useless consumerist crap. It ends up putting crap in rivers.
Of course, it’s not even stated what percentage of rivers it isn’t practical to have as swimmable. Their idea might be to have a few rivers that are kept swimmable while the majority are to become drains.
In my school holiday work milking cows, I often freshened up afterwards with a swim in the local stream. In Nick Smith’s opinion, my childhood is dead – but I suppose it does not affect GDP.
All over the country there are shallow hand dug pipe drains which simply collect all thedung and urine washed down by rain and irrigation and it goes straight into the river nearby. The tile drains are so shallow that the muck doesn’t have a chance to get filtered out.
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