Exclusion of stock from waterbodies

Create a new regulation making power to require that stock are excluded from waterbodies

Problem

508. Livestock incursions into waterways can cause significant damage in terms of both direct contamination of waterways, and impacts on local habitat quality. Excluding stock is considered to be a ‘universal’ good management practice that lends itself well to national regulation. In its 2014 election manifesto policy, the Government committed to excluding dairy cattle from waterways by 1 July2017.

509. The dairy industry has made good progress on voluntarily addressing this environmental issue. The Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord has already excluded stock from over 90% of waterways subject to the accord (nearly 24,000km of waterways). There is an opportunity to provide reassurance to the public that good management practices are in place, and to combat the common perception of ‘dirtydairying’.

Proposal

510. The proposal will make stock exclusion a mandatory requirement for all dairy farmers. It will enable regulations to be made that require all dairy cattle to be excluded from water bodies by 1 July 2017. In order to provide an efficient way of enforcing these regulations, the breach of the proposed regulation will be an infringement offence. This would enable councils to use a streamlined, single-step process for enforcing compliance with the regulation, rather than relying on the current abatement notice and enforcement orderprocess.

511. Introducing the ability to make regulations to exclude dairy cattle on dairy farms from accessing water ways will helpto:

· provide greater confidence to New Zealanders that dairy farming is using good management practices, and meet public expectations around how we should befarming

· improve waterquality

· give national coverage to the Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord requirements by including suppliers to Westland Milk ProductsCompany

· pick up the poorperformers.

512. The impacts of the proposal are likely to be small, given that a significant proportion of water bodies already have stock excluded under the Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord. However, a new regulation making power is necessary in order to be certain that full dairy exclusion from waterways can beachieved.

513. The costs of exclusion will vary depending on the context. This could involve natural barriers, temporary fencing, or permanent fencing. These costs are currently being modelled. Exclusion costs will fall on those that are yet to exclude cattle from their water bodies under the Accord, such as Fonterra’s 3.9 per cent and all Westland MilkProducts.

514. The costs and benefits above have not yet been fully quantified. Impacts will be limited for the majority of the dairy sector given the high level of existing stock exclusion. The detailed costs and benefits will be considered at the time that detailed proposals for the regulations aredeveloped.

Alternativeoptions

A new National Environmental Standard (NES) regulating stock exclusion from waterbodies

515. This option is similar to the preferred option. Exclusion requirements and costs/benefits would be the same. Some minor differences include that an NES would express exclusion requirements in the form of a rule or prohibited activity for regional councils to administer, while a regulation could be more direct. There would be some situations in which an activity or resource use can continue even if it is contrary to an NES. These ‘existing use rights’ may prevail over an NES for stock exclusion – specifically, any consents that expressly permit activities, where those activities involve stock access to water. There is an (currently unquantified) risk that some existing consents could permit stock access to water making an NES for stock exclusion ineffective for a specific class of consentholders.