Joint efforts to improve the water quality of the Rai River have been recognized in a new national award celebrating community commitment to protecting and restoring New Zealand’s rivers and streams.
The Rai River received a regional award in the NZ River Awards as the most improved waterway in Marlborough, judges ranking it as showing the fourth greatest improvement amongst the regional finalists from around the country.
The awards are a Morgan Foundation project supported by philanthropist Gareth Morgan.
Council’s Senior Environmental Scientist - Water Quality and Ecology Peter Hamill said the Rai monitoring site had shown an 8% annual improvement which was not that far behind the 13.1% improvement recorded by the winning river, Otago’s Shag River.
Not every region had a waterway showing significant improvement.
As well as significant improvements to the trend level of E coli, the judges were looking at remedial action to bring down E coli levels in river catchment areas.
Mr Hamill said the improvement in Rai River water quality was directly attributable to the efforts of the local dairy farmers who have been working with the District Council to upgrade their stream crossings.
He said the strong message which came out of the awards was that, while individual farmers may feel they can’t make a lot of difference, the cumulative impact for a river catchment can be enough to turn around deteriorating water quality.
It was a credit to all those involved that so much progress had been made on the new stream crossings, he said.
He said, while the Rai River did still have some way to go to bring the E coli count right down, he expected the water quality would keep improving as farmers made more progress on the work that is underway to fence stock off from the river.
“It’s a real boost to get this kind of independent endorsement. It underlines the impact made by the farmers who’ve made so many improvements and I hope it will encourage others to buy in to the work being done,” he said.
Council Environment Committee chairman Peter Jerram said Rai Valley farmers were showing how much could be achieved by a collaborative approach between farmers and Council.
“This is a long term project, which the Council has approached with patience and with understanding of the changes and their impact on farmers.
“Several of the farmers in the Rai have shown strong leadership and they are to be commended,” he said.
“In the long term it will be for their own benefit as they will enjoy the benefits of clean water in their catchment.”
At the same time, he said, the progress had proved the worth of Council taking a non-regulatory approach and working with farmers and Fonterra to deliver on the Water Accord, an agreement designed to clean up New Zealand’s waterways.