Catchment group proposed for Waimea

A group of Waimea landowners are drumming up interest in a catchment group that can work on specific aspects of each subcatchment, from water quality to willow control.

New Zealand Landcare Trust regional coordinator, Annette Litherland, says a group of landowners met last month to find out if there was support for a Waimea catchment group.

That led to a wider meeting planned next week in Brightwater to discuss a landowner-led catchment group and potentially a subcatchment-based collective.

A Roding catchment group was established late last year, which is a subcatchment of the Waimea, and Annette says that has prioritised water quality, increasing biodiversity and weed control as its tasks.

She says each subcatchment will have different priorities and another example of that is the Motueka catchment group, whose focus includes flood mitigation and working with forestry.

The sheer scale of the Waimea catchment means it needs to be split into subcatchments, but she says they could work under one umbrella.

Horticulture growers on the Waimea Plains have been working for a number of years with Horticulture New Zealand to improve practices that may affect aquifers below the plains, but this is the first time landowners have sought to establish a catchment group.

“It always requires that spark – a group of landowners wanting to start it,” she says.

“If we create a group in the Waimea, it would be working out what the landowners are interested in.”

While most of the catchment’s water quality is reasonably good, she says there are a few issues with nitrates and e-coli in spring-fed streams.

“It’s a lot easier to look after the water and keep it good and address what issues there are, than wait for the rivers to degrade.”

Sometimes, landowners worry about the workload of joining a catchment group, but Annette says there are now so many support agencies to help out.

“It’s up to the landowners to decide how it is run.”

Tasman District Council’s water quality scientist, Trevor James, will talk at the upcoming meeting about Waimea water quality.

The meeting is being held in Brightwater’s St Paul’s Church on 24 October from 6.30pm and interested landowners can register here or get more information by contacting Annette on 027 724 4445.