North Canterbury Irrigators Attacked Again

August 26, 2019

By NZB3

North Canterbury farmers’ are under attack from politicians who want to change the rules about the use of nitrate fertiliser use.

Ben McKerchar of of West Eyreton describes Ecan’s shifting of the goalposts as draconian, demanding, unrelenting and unreasonable. The proposals already throw a spanner of uncertainty into the region’s future. When the axe does fall it will only get worse, driving the dairy farmers to bankruptcy. Stuff are already pronouncing doom…

“Large scale irrigation projects are likely to be a thing of the past.”

The people of West Eyreton have been dairying for over 100 years. Why? Why commit this quiet little genocide on a rural community?

“There are concerns nitrates could travel under the bed of the Waimakariri River and increase nitrate levels in Christchurch’s drinking water.”- North Canterbury nitrate reductions may cause financial ruin, some farmers say; Stuff

‘There are concerns‘ is one of those 2010s Politically Correct phrases like “That is offensive” and “I find this problematic” (or even “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”) “There are concerns nitrates could travel under the bed of the Waimakariri River..”

Where is the evidence of this hypothetical south-flowing subterranean river flowing under and orthogonal to the Waimak carrying nitrates into the city? It may be that the media has some really great evidence but what they put up instead is a carpet-bagger politician’s smiling face as if that’s enough reason to cull country people.

Lan Pham from E Can

“ECan councillor Lan Pham considers the plan change does not go far enough to ensure the city’s water is protected.” That’s it. You know you’re living in Victimhood Culture when all it takes to establish or rebut something is that a fertile environmentalist woman mutters a magic word or two. In this case we’re all supposed to bow down to..

“Considers”

Ms Lan Pham from ECan (future Green MP, she wishes) is not being presented for any expertise or facts she can bring to the table. Indeed, her entire campaign to get into political office again was about popularity and the expropriation of catchy pop music¹.

In 2017, Pham ripped off Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood track to appeal to youth and scored huge votes. This is the same copyright infringement that National 5.0 employed in 2014 when ripping off Eminem’s music. By 2017 the Nats were being prosecuted. This didn’t stop Pham from going ahead on the excuse that her policy on clean water transcended artist rights and that she was a really big fan of Taylor Swift anyway!

“ECan has previously endorsed a recommendation by the Waimakariri water zone committee for a 3.8mg per litre level of nitrates for the Christchurch supply and said it was a “reduction goal” for areas with higher levels.”

“Current average nitrate concentrations in the Christchurch community supply’s wells that are more than 80m deep are 0.6mg/l.”

The Stuff makes this information obscure and sneaks it in at the very end of the article. Apart from shifting the goal posts, ECan is willing to go to war on farmers by blaming them for nitrate levels 75% below the threshold goal!²

Lan Pham from ECan et al are also ready to blame this 0.6mg/L on a hypothetical south-flowing subterranean, sub-Waimak, underground river that caries nitrates into Christchurch. Yet, as the West Eyreton folk point out, these traces could be historic and come from other places. Christchurch itself! Did anyone ever use fertiliser on the Port Hills in the last few decades?

ps I don’t say Lan Pham from ECan is a carpet-bagger just because she’s Vietnamese. She’s got a good Kiwi accent and might well have been born in New Zealand too. The point is that she is a bureaucratic import to Canterbury from outside.

After working for The State she moved to Canterbury some 5 years ago and at once commenced to put herself into authority over Cantabrians. As a thought exercise just imagine someone from Vietnam or Wellington rocking up to Canterbury in the year 1919 and bossing people around, telling them to shut down their agriculture! Today we’re ready to obey because a slim girl and a stolen song has a pink Li-lo in the Ashley river bed3³.

—

1 Councillor’s music video takes on freshwater pollution; Stuff

Image ref. ibid

Ref. Should farmers pay for water?

2 Maximum allowable nitrate content 11.3mg/L; World Health Organisation

3 I assume; Could be Waimak or elsewhere

Ref also. ECan elections may be ‘very dangerous’ if ‘extremists’ elected, warns farming leader; Stuff (2018)

Ref. 1871: First Commercial Diarying; AHNZ