David Carter's warning to other Regional Councils

www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3635449/W...o-councils-by-Carter

I guess ECAN may have been just the beginning.

There is a protest today at 5.30 pm at the ECAN building, 58 Kilmore Street. I'm going - that's the least I can do, as long as we are still allowed to protest because at the rate this government is going protesting may become a punishable offence soon[}][}]

Interesting...and a bizarre comment, really, considering that the regional councils aren't just answerable to farmers, but to everyone in their region, as far as balancing needs/resource use/pollution prevention goes...:confused:

tigger;313712 wrote: Interesting...and a bizarre comment, really, considering that the regional councils aren't just answerable to farmers, but to everyone in their region, as far as balancing needs/resource use/pollution prevention goes...:confused:

It just shows what priorities this government has set[}] As if we taxpayers who raise a future generation of taxpayers (and I mean this) had nothing to say.[}]

I am also scratching my head about what is happening with the things other than water (air pollution, transport, water quality, biosecurity, etc etc) that regional councils are responsible for...reading about this, you'd think that water was the only thing that Ecan is involved in, which is not the case at all.

Have you got all the paper work that you need to be allowed to protest

Sod ... you mean that form signed in front of a JP. wittnessed by 5 people, copied in quadrupl and forwarded to 3 different government departments ... none of whom will have it back to you with approval or dennied untill 4 weeks after the protest ?

yep i have

I'm not going to protest. I'm too busy struggling to survive.

There is nothing more polluting than a city and its wasteful inhabitants - how many of them even think for a moment what they put down their drains etc - where do they think it goes.

So here am I sitting in the country trying to grow food and make a living off the land - doing nutrient budgets, continually worrying about drought and margins and costs, household water limits, thinking about what I use in my washing machine, dishwasher, toilet, shower, bath etc

and they tell me that I can't have any water whatsoever so that they can be sure of having an endless supply of fresh stuff so that they can pollute it with their detergents, toothpastes, toilet cleaners, car wash, dishwashers, solvents, insinkerators, sanitary products, fake tan and half drunk lattes made out of milk from those god forbidden cows........but wait

they still want to go to the local supermarket and buy their lamb, pork, chicken, milk, bread, veges, - and then they will whinge about the price.

So if we don't want the farmers to have water what can they do with their land - no-one has come up with that economically viable solution yet. The dryland farmer on the Canterbury Plains is a dying breed - they are dying from exhaustion - it is just too tough and really what is the point if the business isn't a good strong economically viable one.

My fantasy would be to have water and lessen the risk of drought so that I could do budget and have a bit more certainty that crops would grow and yield well, pasture would grow so I could finish beef and lamb

The defeatest option would be to sell up.... to carve the land up and turn it into lifestyle blocks that was grazed by ponies and pigs that all had names and never got eaten. But wait - slight snag - not allowed to do that either

This ECan thing is about water and until now it has been controlled by a bunch of squabbling grandstanding plonkers.

I live in hope.......

Stu that is the one mate

So what would be your solution to it all, cowvet?

Make all city folk live in the country for 2wks of the year, a week in summer and one in mid winter and they get just a shack and 2litres of water and a roll of paper in their back pack.. and see what they think afterwards.. Oh they also have to look after the 300acres of animals with no electric fences.

beedee careful we might have to go live in city for two weeks

Cowvet - have you ever considered that our water resource is a limited resource? It will never suffice to irrigate the whole of the Canterbury Plains so some farmers will go without.

Imagine the resource was overallocated (as is already the case in some areas) and we have a dry, hot and windy summer. Every farmer irrigates and suddenly the wells run dry. Suddenly quite a few farms won't have any water at all. How do you think a herd of 3000 cows will get enough drinking water carted in over night?

I know what it is like to have no water because a well has run dry.

It is the responsibility of Ecan to make sure that our water resource is managed so that even during a dry summer the wells don't run dry. What do you think the farmers would say if it became obvious that the water was overallocated? Would they say "many thanks that we were able to irrigate while the water was there?" I don't think so.

And btw - this thread is about our democratic rights being taken away.

Simkin - there is unlimited water for everyone running down those rivers for a good proportion of the time. All it needs is some foresight to store it and use it where needed. Funnily enough the rivers flood in a norwest - which is when we need the water on the plains the most

Next time there is norwest rain in the mountains I suggest you take a quick look at the rivers - the waste is torture for dryland farmers like me

Democratic rights - I voted in both elections ECan and NZ elections. One is sorting out the other so can still be considered democratic. our national government was also elected by a democratic process.
The ECan elections gave me two options - both nothing anywhere representative of the farmers in my area.

cowvet;313832 wrote: Simkin - there is unlimited water for everyone running down those rivers for a good proportion of the time. All it needs is some foresight to store it and use it where needed. Funnily enough the rivers flood in a norwest - which is when we need the water on the plains the most

Next time there is norwest rain in the mountains I suggest you take a quick look at the rivers - the waste is torture for dryland farmers like me

Maths obviously wasn't your strongest subject:rolleyes:

But yes, I've seen the Raikaia River during a norwester a couple of weeks ago. There sure is quite some water running towards the gorge for a few hours. But it still is a limited resource. We saw the river at the Coleridge power station where it was flooding the banks.

Further down however, at the SH1 bridge, still only 1 arm carried water and it didn't look flooded at all, just a bit more water than usual and not the blue/green colour it usually has but a greyish colour. So where did all that water go that was there beyond the gorge? Maybe already taken for irrigation purposes[:0]

There are hundreds of consents already in place to take water directly from the river to irrigate and many of these consents are tied to the river's flow.

It used to be first come, first served and those who came first have water consents. Maybe you were too late with your application. But that's not ECAN's fault.

Simkin;313839 wrote:
There are hundreds of consents already in place to take water directly from the river to irrigate and many of these consents are tied to the river's flow.

let me guess - maths wasn't your strength either ?