Make the savings without the sermon

The preaching of the earth worshippers is getting increasingly strident.

It’s rare to stay anywhere which doesn’t exhort you to save power and water and suggest you could re-use your towels to save your host money the world.

The James Cook in Wellington has gone a step further.

It doesn’t have phone books in its rooms. Most guests probably don’t need one and if you don’t have a computer to search for the number yourself reception will bring you a phone book or look up numbers for you.

But there’s more : a letter on the bed when you check in explains:

* Choosing not to have your room services saves approximately 20 litres of water just in cleaning your bathroom.

* Our laundry can save approximately 15 litres of water by simply not having your towels and linen changed.

* reduction in the use of chemicals such as toilet cleaner, multipurpose cleaner and air freshener used to clean your bathroom.

* Saves power used to operate vacuum cleaners, lights and heating while servicing your room.

Beside the letter is a card (green of course) which you can hang on your door by midnight if you don’t want your rooms serviced.

What do you do if sometime after midnight something happens which makes you change your mind? Go with head bowed in shame and beg for your room to be cleaned or put up with the mess?

Why can’t the cleaning staff just use their eyes and noses to decide if they need to sacrifice any water, cleaning materials, air freshener or power?

And if hotels, motels and other businesses want to save the world why can’t they do it without preaching at me?

I have no objection at all to businesses doing their best to minimise their impact on the earth  – it makes environmental and economic sense to save resources but I don’t like being preached at and  wish they’d make the savings without the sermon.

I’m not paying for a sermon and when I get one I suspect that it’s not so much about being green, it’s more about being seen to be green as a marketing ploy.

To holiday or not to holiday is the annual question

If the captain of the John Wikcliffe had known what chaos and confusion his arrival at Port Chalmers would cause future citizens of Otago and Southland, he might have chosen a more convenient date.

As it was he arrived on March 23rd and some powers that be subsequently decreed that that date would be the two provinces’ anniversary day and be observed on the Monday closet to it.

That’s today.

The trouble is those of us on the right side of the Waitaki and of independent mind and not everyone wants to take today off. Some would prefer to tack the day on to Easter which is usually not far away instead.

Consequently, as happens every year, some businesses and offices are open and some are not. Some people are taking a day off and others are saving it for a couple of weeks to turn the four-day Easter break into a five day one.

As employers with a seven day a week operation, we have to pay those who work today holiday rates even if they’d rather work today and have a day off in a fortnight.

That includes anyone who might be getting stock in to send to the works  because if no-one does that today freezing workers – who may or may not be working today – will have nothing to do tomorrow.

Living on the right side of the Waitaki has a lot to recommend but, but the timing of our anniversary day isn’t one of them.

March 22

On March 22:

238 Gordian I and his son Gordian II were proclaimed Roman emperors.

1599 Anthony van Dyck, Flemish painter, was born.

 

1621  The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.

1622 Jamestown massacre: Algonquian Indians killed 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony’s population.

 

1630  Massachusetts Bay Colony outlawed the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables.

1638 Anne Hutchinson was expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.

 

1765  British parliament passed the Stamp Act, which introduced a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.

 

1784 The Emerald Buddha was moved to its current place in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand.

 

1809 Charles XIII succeeded Gustav IV Adolf to the Swedish throne.

1818 John Ainsworth Horrocks, English-born explorer of South Australia, was born.

 

1829 The three protecting powers (Britain, France and Russia) established the borders of Greece.

1849 The Austrians defeated the Piedmontese at the Battle of Novara.

1871 William Woods Holden became the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.

1873 A law was approved by the Spanish National Assembly in Puerto Rico to abolish slavery.

1887 Chico Marx, American comedian and actor, was born.

1894 The first playoff game for the Stanley Cup started.

1895 First display (a private screening) of motion pictures by Auguste and Louis Lumière.

1906 First Anglo-French rugby union match at Parc des Princes in Paris

1908 Louis L’Amour, American author, was born.

1910 Nicholas Monsarrat, British novelist, was born.

 

1916 The last Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicated the throne and the Republic of China was restored.

1923 Marcel Marceau, world renown French Mime, was born.

1930 Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist, was born.

1933 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law a bill legalizing the sale of beer and wine.

1936 Roger Whittaker, British singer, was born.

1939  Germany took Memel from Lithuania.

 

1941 Washington’s Grand Coulee Dam began to generate electricity.

1942 Britain’s Royal Navy confronted Italy’s Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.

 

1942 Keith Relf, English musician (The Yardbirds), was born.

 

1943 The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus was burnt alive by German occupation forces.

 

1945 The Arab League was founded when a charter was adopted in Cairo.

1948 Andrew Lloyd Webber, English theatre composer, was born.

1954 The London bullion market reopened.

1955 Valdis Zatlers, 7th President of Latvia, was born.

1960  Arthur Leonard Schawlow & Charles Hard Townes received the first patent for a laser.

 

1978 Karl Wallenda of the The Flying Wallendas died after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

1982 NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia, was launched on its third mission, STS-3.

1993 The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path.

1994 Anna Paquin won an Oscar for her part in The Piano. Director Jane Campion won the award for best screen play.

 

1995 Cosmonaut Valeriy Polyakov returned after setting a record for 438 days in space.

1997 Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and 10 months, became the youngest champion of the women’s world figure skating competition.

1997 – The Comet Hale-Bopp had its closest approach to earth.

2004 Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas, two bodyguards, and nine civilian bystanders were killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache fired Hellfire missiles.

2006 ETA, armed Basque separatist group, declared permanent ceasefire.

2006 – BC Ferries’ M/V Queen of the North ran aground on Gil Island British Columbia and sinks; 101 on board, 2 presumed deaths.

2006 – Three Christian Peacemaker Teams Hostages were freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days captivity and the death of their colleague, American Tom Fox.

2009 Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska began erupting after a prolonged period of unrest.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipeida

In The Summertime

Happy birthday ray Dorset, 64 today.

Air on G String

Johann Sebastian Bach was born 325 years ago today.

Super powers

What super powers do we need for the modern world? Not the comic book ones, but ones which make us better people.

Zen Tiger at NZ Conservative muses on this and has come up with a list of five:

1. Comprehend Languages.
2. Know names.
3. Teleport.
4. Healing Touch.
5. Iron Will.

I’ve deliberately left out Zen’s explanations and suggestions of alternate powers because the post deserves to be read in full.

He’s aiming for a top 10. I’ve added:

6. the power to truly forgive and fully forget slights

7. the power to foresee unforeseen consequences.

Lines of the week

Those in the public eye must choose carefully how they get into the public’s ear – as many a famous throat well knows. . .

And

Them? Them!? You mean ordinary people? The masses? A man of the left shouldn’t get hoity-toity about the hoi polloi, Charlie boy. . .

And

It’s unwise for any politician – and particularly one of our modern micro-Marxists – to be so offended by a close encounter with the proletariat – or, in this case, the proletariat’s children. . .

And

The point – the only point – is that there is no point. There’s no story here. . .

And

This was a beat-up, as surely as the Sunday Star-Times ‘omigosh, we’re not ready for the Rugby World Cup bomb scare story’ was, if you will, a blow-up. . .

They’re all from Jim Hopkins and you can read the full column here.

Transpower’s talking to farmers

Transpower must be taking farmer discontent over pylons on their properties seriously.

We got a phone call this afternoon inviting us to a meeting with the company to discuss any issues we might have.

In the old days when power was a public utility most farmers didn’t expect any compensation for the inconvenience of pylons on their land.

Forntunately few are so angry they’ll have a stand off when there’s a power failure. But many now feel that they should receive some sort of payment for putting up with pylons.

Federated Farmers has been working with Transpower to get agreement. The meeting we were invited to suggests that some sort of progress is being made and the company is genuinely willing to listen to farmers’ concerns.

March 21 in history

On March 21:

717 Battle of Vincy between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid.

1188  Accession to the throne of Japan by Emperor Antoku.

1413 Henry V became King of England.

1556 Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake.

1685 Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer, was born.

 

1788 A fire in New Orleans left most of the town in ruins.

1800  Pius VII was crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.

1801 The Battle of Alexandria was fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt.

1804 Code Napoléon was adopted as French civil law.

 

1811 Nathaniel Woodard, English educationalist, was born.

 

1821 First revolutionary act in Monastery of Agia Lavra, Kalavryta, Greek War of Independence.

1844 The Bahá’í calendar began.

1844 – The original date predicted by William Miller for the return of Christ.

1857  An earthquake in Tokyo  killed more than 100,000.

1863 George Owen Squier, American inventor and Major General in U.S. Signal Corp, was born.

 

1871 Otto von Bismarck was appointed Chancellor of the German Empire.

1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley began his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.

1904 Forrest Mars Sr., American candymaker, was born.

1905 Albert Einstein publishes his theory on special relativity.

1913 Over 360 are killed and 20,000 homes destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Ohio.

 

1918 The first phase of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, began.

1919 The Hungarian Soviet Republic was established becoming the first Communist government to be formed in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia.

 

1928 Charles Lindbergh was presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.

1933 Construction of Dachau, the first Nazi Germany concentration camp, was completed.

 

1935 Shah Reza Pahlavi formally asked the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran, which means ‘Land of the Aryans’.

1937 18 people in Ponce, Puerto Rico were gunned down by a police squad acting under orders of US-appointed PR Governor, Blanton C. Winship.

 

1943 Vivian Stanshall, English musician, artist, actor, writer, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, was born.

1945  British troops liberated Mandalay, Burma.

1945 Operation Carthage – British planes bombed Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen but also hit a school; 125 civilians were killed.

1945 Rose Stone, American musician (Sly & the Family Stone), was born. 

1946  Ray Dorset, English Musician (Mungo Jerry)

1946 Timothy Dalton, British actor, was born.

1950 Roger Hodgson, English musician, former member of Supertramp, was born.

1951 Russell Thompkins Jr, American singer (The Stylistics), was born.

1952  Alan Freed presented the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.

 

1960 Massacre in Sharpeville: Police opened fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180.

1963 Alcatraz closed.

1964 Gigliola Cinquetti won the ninth Eurovision Song Contest for Italy singing “Non ho l’età” (“I’m not old enough”).

1965 NASA launched Ranger 9, the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes.

1965 – Martin Luther King Jr led 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

1968 Battle of Karameh in Jordan between Israeli Defense Forces and Fatah.

1970 The first Earth Day proclamation was issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto.

 

1974  Rhys Darby, New Zealand Comedian, was born.

1980  US President Jimmy Carter announced a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.

1980 – On the season finale of the soap opera Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing was shot by an unseen assailant, leading to the catchphrase “Who Shot JR?”

1985 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen began his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.

1990 – Namibia becgained its independence after 75 years of South African rule.

1999 Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones became the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.

 

2003 Race Relations Day was celebrated in New Zealand for the first time.

2006  Immigrant workers constructing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, The United Arab Emirates and a new terminal of Dubai International Airport joined together and riot, causing $1M in damage.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Lucky Man

Happy birthday Carl Palmer – 60 today.

Did you see the one about . . .

Our contemporary sanctimony puts Vicorians to shame - Thoedore Dalrymple at Pyjamas Media.

Major announcement - Macdoctor sums up the state of the nation’s biggest paper.

We attempt to clip the chickens’ wings  at Private Secret Diary (hat tip Quote UnQuote)

Back to the good old days Keeping Stock doesn’t approve but he does admire a good streak.

The humble swede - Rivetting Kate Taylor in praise of the vegetable which fuels southern stock & people.

Peachy – In A Strange Land is cooking again.

Happy birthday to us - the Hand Mirror celebrates two years in the blogosphere.

Heart  Craft is the New Black with a speech from her grand mother, you might also enjoy Introducing Nana.

Don’t believe everything you read on a T-shirt - unintended humour at Something Goes Here

Banal expression banned on radio - at Eye2thelong run – if only they were.

Tramping without the scroggin and singalongs - Karl du Fresne with tips on the Tongariro Crossing.

Key to victory – meida coverage of the 2008 election at Liberation.

New blog – Latitude 44 is leaving the USA to go gliding in Omarama.

We’ll Meet Again

Happy Birthday Dame Vera Lynn – 93 today.

7/10

My New Zealand history knowledge seems to be stuck at 70%:  7/10 again in this week’s NZ Historyonline quiz.

Said Hanrahan

With thanks to Adolf whose comment on the previous post reminded me of this by John O’Brien, Australian priest and poet:

Said Hanrahan

We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

  In accents most forlorn,

Outside the church, ere Mass began,

  One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,

  Coat-collars to the ears,

And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,

  As it had done for years.

“It’s looking crook,” said Daniel Croke;

  “Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad,

For never since the banks went broke

  Has seasons been so bad.”

“It’s dry, all right,” said young O’Neil,

  With which astute remark

He squatted down upon his heel

  And chewed a piece of bark.

And so around the chorus ran

  “It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”

“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

  “Before the year is out.”
“The crops are done; ye’ll have your work

  To save one bag of grain;

From here way out to Back-o’-Bourke

  They’re singin’ out for rain.

“They’re singin’ out for rain,” he said,

  “And all the tanks are dry.”

The congregation scratched its head,

  And gazed around the sky.

“There won’t be grass, in any case,

  Enough to feed an ass;

There’s not a blade on Casey’s place

  As I came down to Mass.”

“If rain don’t come this month,” said Dan,

  And cleared his throat to speak -

“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

  “If rain don’t come this week.”

A heavy silence seemed to steal

  On all at this remark;

And each man squatted on his heel,

  And chewed a piece of bark.

“We want an inch of rain, we do,”

  O’Neil observed at last;

But Croke “maintained” we wanted two

  To put the danger past.

“If we don’t get three inches, man,

  Or four to break this drought,

We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

  “Before the year is out.”

In God’s good time down came the rain;

  And all the afternoon

On iron roof and window-pane

  It drummed a homely tune.

And through the night it pattered still,

  And lightsome, gladsome elves

On dripping spout and window-sill

  Kept talking to themselves.

It pelted, pelted all day long,

  A-singing at its work,

Till every heart took up the song

  Way out to Back-o’-Bourke.

And every creek a banker ran,

  And dams filled overtop;

“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

  “If this rain doesn’t stop.”

And stop it did, in God’s good time;

  And spring came in to fold

A mantle o’er the hills sublime

  Of green and pink and gold.

And days went by on dancing feet,

  With harvest-hopes immense,

And laughing eyes beheld the wheat

  Nid-nodding o’er the fence.

And, oh, the smiles on every face,

  As happy lad and lass

Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place

  Went riding down to Mass.

While round the church in clothes genteel

  Discoursed the men of mark,

And each man squatted on his heel,

  And chewed his piece of bark.

“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,

  There will, without a doubt;

We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,

  “Before the year is out.”

Just 13 inches

North Otago had just 13 inches of rain in the 12 months to the end of February.

That’s not nearly enough when our average rainfall is about 20 inches (500 mls).

We had recurring droughts through the 1980s and early 1990s which were devastating not just for farmers but for the people who worked for, serviced and supplied them. That impacted on Oamaru and the wider economy and because of that the news was full of drought stories.

This year there’s hardly been a mention.

That’s mostly due to the larger area which is irrigated. Nothing beats water from the sky but at least those of us with irrigation can keep growing grass and feeding our stock.

However, farmers are becoming increasingly worried. There are limits to what irrigation can do and a lot of dairy farmers with irrigated properties rely on dry land farms for wintering stock.

There’s still time for autumn growth if it rains in the next couple of weeks. But temperatures are dropping and if it doesn’t rain soon it will be too late for winter crops.

March 20 in history

On March 20:

43 BC Ovid, Roman poet, was born.

1600 – The Linköping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden.

1602 The Dutch East India Company was established.

1616 Sir Walter Raleigh was freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.

1737  Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke, King of Thailand, was born.

1739 Nadir Shah occupied Delhi and sacked the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne.

1760 The “Great Fire” of Boston, Massachusetts destroyed 349 buildings.

1815 After escaping from Elba, Napoleon entered Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.

 

1834 New Zealand’s first flag was chosen.

1848 Ludwig I of Bavaria abdicated.

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published.

1861 An earthquake completely destroyed Mendoza, Argentina.

1883 The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property was signed.

1888 The premiere of the first Romani language operetta was staged in Moscow.

1913 Sung Chiao-jen, a founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party, was wounded in an assassination attempt and dies 2 days later.

1916 Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity.

 two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional analogy of space-time curvature described in General Relativity.

1917 Vera Lynn, English actress and singer, was born.

1922 The USS Langley (CV-1) is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.

1937 Lois Lowry, American children’s author, was born.

1939  Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada, was born.

1942 General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, made his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says: “I came out of Bataan and I shall return”.

1948 With a Musicians Union ban lifted, the first telecasts of classical music in the United States, under Eugene Ormandy and Arturo Toscanini, were given on CBS and NBC.

1950 Carl Palmer, English drummer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), was born.

1956 Tunisia gained independence from France.

1957 David Foster, Australian woodchopper, was born.

1958 Holly Hunter, American actress, was born.

1979 Keven Mealamu, New Zealand rugby player, was born.

1980 The Radio Caroline ship, Mi Amigo foundered in a gale off the English coast.

 

1985 Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

 

1987 The Food and Drug Administration approved the anti-AIDS drug, AZT.

1988 Eritrean War of Independence: The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front entered the town of Afabet, victoriously concluding the Battle of Afabet.

1990 Imelda Marcos, went on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering.

1993 An IRA bomb explodes, killing two children in Warrington, Northwest England.

1995 A sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway killed 12 and wounds 1,300 people.

 A wanted poster.

1999 Legoland California, the only Legoland outside Europe, opened in Carlsbad.

2003  2003 invasion of Iraq: In the early hours of the morning, the United States and three other countries begin military operations in Iraq.

2004 Stephen Harper won the leadership of the newly created Conservative Party of Canada, becoming the party’s first leader.

2005 A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Fukuoka, Japan, its first major quake in over 100 years. One person was killed, hundreds are injured and evacuated.

2006 Cyclone Larry made landfall in eastern Australia, destroying most of the country’s banana crop.

2006  More than 150 Chadian soldiers were killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC seeking  to overthrow Chad president Idriss Deby.

2006 Chris and Cru Kahui, New Zealand murder victims were born.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Save the Last Dance for Me

Happy birthday Bruce Willis, 55 today.

I remember him from Moonlighting but while trawling YouTube discovered he’s also a singer:

Tommy Cooper

Tommy Cooper would have been 89 today.

Cleaning up dairying

The rise is serious non-compliance with the Clean Streams Accord from 12 to 15% is disappointing.

It is particularly concerning when there’s been so much work put into improving compliance within the industry.

However, the response from the industry is encouraging.

Fonterra announced it will check effluents systems on all its suppliers’ farms every year.

DairyNZ has already done a lot of work on the problem:

DairyNZ CEO Dr Tim Mackle says through this investment over the last two years, they have learned a lot more about why many dairy farm systems are non-compliant.

“The design of many systems is such that they are not fit for purpose throughout the year. We have been working with the effluent industry to develop a code of practice and are strongly advocating a warrant of fitness approach so that we correct this fundamental problem.”

Last week DairyNZ and industry partners released for consultation new standards and a code of practice for the design of farm dairy effluent systems.

“We would like to get our effluent systems on all farms to a high standard within the next five years, or sooner if possible.”

Dr Mackle says many farmers are uncertain about what they need to do to be compliant and DairyNZ is working with regional councils to establish effluent compliance checklists to give farmers greater guidance on what needs to be done on their farm.

“Our aim is by doing this we will come away with a better system design and promote systems that work and have a higher standard of rural professionals advising on these systems which will cut costs. We can then focus our efforts on making sure staff know how to work these systems.

“We are serious about getting this right, and are working closely with Fonterra and Federated Farmers on the issue. It’s crucial to our industry’s reputation both nationally and internationally, as well as being essential for the environment,” he says.

Federated Farmers dairy chair Lachlan Mckenzie said the results present a challenge for farmers, but he’s accentuating the positive:

“Yet while our news is disappointing, the dairy industry is fronting it publicly. Disclosing our environmental footprint, good or bad, is all about being open and accountable because our performance is out there for all to see.

“Wouldn’t it be encouraging, for once, if the vast majority of dairy farmers actually got positive reinforcement for the big strides we’ve made.  Farmers may have a right to farm but the good ones, the majority, swear by their environmental obligations.

“We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that 85 percent of New Zealand’s dairy farmers are either fully compliant or guilty of no more than an administrative breach.  This Report really highlights need for greater consistency with the way farms are inspected.

“To take the dairy industry forward, Fonterra, DairyNZ and Federated Farmers want to work with regional councils to develop what may resemble a dairy farm ‘warrant of fitness’ (WoF).

“The concept is just like that for a car WoF.  It’s about setting consistent standards and methodologies that take into account regional variations in soil, climate and topography.  You would never test vehicles the way our dairy farms are currently tested.

Agriculture Minister David Carter isn’t impressed by the results:

“The data from this year’s snapshot tells a totally unacceptable story of effluent management. Regardless of whether this is because farmers don’t have the right tools, don’t know how to comply, or simply don’t care, behaviour has to change.”

Mr Carter says the dairy industry as a whole will suffer through the damage caused to its national and international reputation, unless New Zealand can back up its claims of sustainable dairying with tangible action and evidence.

“You can argue the merits of dairy to our economy until the cows come home – but until every farmer takes responsibility for improving effluent management, the environment and dairying’s reputation will suffer.

“I am putting non-complying dairy farmers across the country on notice. You need to take individual responsibility for this issue and work more effectively with your neighbours, your regional councils and your industry body.

“I am also calling on regional councils and partners of the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord to lift their game. They need to work harder at identifying those farmers who want to comply but need some help, and support them toward compliance. Regional councils also need to be more consistent in their monitoring, and be more rigorous in their application of existing regulations to penalise those flouting the law.

Any non-compliance is unacceptable and recent successful prosecutions by the Otago regional Council have provided salutary lessons for dairy farms in our area.

However, there ought to be some leeway to differentiate between a one-off accident, for example a sprayer breaks down when some leniency could be shown, and deliberate non-compliance which ought not to be tolerated.

Farming families drink the water from rivers and swim in them which provides us with a very high motivation ensuring they are clean.

Consent cost kills cubicle dairy application

The news that the companies applying for resource consents for large cubicle dairying operations in the Mackenzie basin have withdrawn their applications will be welcomed by the many people who were horrified by the idea.

A lot of the reaction was based on emotion rather than fact and included concerns over animal welfare which have nothing to do with resource consent.

I had mixed views on the application – some of it emotive – so I’m not altogether unhappy that the applications have been withdrawn, at least for now.

But what does concern me is that the reason for the applicants aren’t going ahead with their plans is the cost of going through the consent process.

It was the “extraordinary cost of the call-in process, combined with the premature consideration of effluent consents without certainty of gaining water” that led to the decision to withdraw effluent applications, Southdown Holdings director Richard Peacocke said.

This doesn’t mean the companies won’t reapply later. Environment Canterbury is considering their applications for water and if they are granted the applications for effluent discharges could be lodged again. But that will still be an expensive process.

Any development has to meet the requirements of the RMA but applying for consent shouldn’t be so costly ideas die on the drawing board for financial rather than environmental reasons.