Whitebait warning given at hearing

Whitebait will become extinct in Southland if a plan to address the region’s water quality doesn’t work, Water and Land Plan hearing commissioners have been told.

Chris Henderson, a farmer and the Forest & Bird chairwoman for Southland, gave the warning during the second week of the hearing yesterday.

‘‘If you don’t get this water plan right you are looking at the extinction of the whitebait patty,’’ Henderson said.

‘‘That’s the sober background to all of this.’’

After speaking to her submission, Henderson said whitebait numbers were on the decline.

‘‘If water quality whitebait die.’’

The proposed Southland Water and Land Plan seeks to manage farming activities that add to disproportionate amounts of contaminants such as nitrogen, phosphorous and sediments entering waterways.

It proposes to introduce further land use controls over winter grazing and further intensification or establishment of new dairy farms.

A contentious proposal in the plan is for the staged exclusion of all stock except sheep from waterways.

The idea has come under fire from some farmers who say it is unrealistic and cost prohibitive.

However, the future makeup of the rule around stock exclusion isn’t there, from waterways is up in the air because the government is set to make rules around the practice which could overtake any rules in the plan.

Timothy Story, of Jedburgh Station near Wyndham, said it was untenable to totally exclude beef cattle from waterways.

His submission says he does not farm beef cattle intensively on his hill country farm and fencing all of the watercourses is impractical.

There are many places on his farm where fencing is inappropriate and it cannot be done, he said.

‘‘There are literally hundreds of creeks on my property,’’ Story said.

‘‘Those that could be fenced would take a lifetime and the cost would be prohibitive at $1300 per kilometre,’’ he said.

David Nind, of East Dome Farms, said his main concern was the proposed rule to restrict intensive winter grazing to 50 hectares on properties including his, unless resource consent was given for more.

There was no science or logic behind the 50-hectare limit and larger properties would be penalised if the rule was put in place, Nind said.

He believed the intensive winter grazing rule should work on a percentage of land basis, ‘‘15 to 20 per cent being the threshold’’.

The hearing continues today before resuming at the same Gore location, Heartland Hotel Croyden, on June 26.