Forest and Bird is advocating for rural dwellers to pay for their water-take – a recommendation that was left out of the government's national policy statement on fresh water management.

Forest and Bird officer Al Fleming says if farmers were all paying for their water take it would put more funds towards improving water quality.

Central North Island field officer Al Fleming says Forest and Bird recommended one way of providing funding to improve water quality funding would be a resource rental on water-take for rural dwellers.
'Currently water-take associated with resource consents on farms does not incur a charge,” says Al.

'If there was a charge then that money would be used to both manage water allocation and restore water bodies – so that was a lost opportunity there.”

Nearly half of New Zealand's lakes and 90 per cent of its lowland rivers are classed as polluted – a far cry from being a pure green country.

Al still holds out hope the recommendation will be taken up to help fund an improvement in water quality.

The government's new water metering regulations, which are to be introduced during the next few years, would be a handy tool to measure the resource rental on water-take.

The water metering regulations require all significant water takes to be metered as part of a wider programme to improve fresh water management; all water takes of more than 20 litres a second are to be metered within two years (2012); water takes of more than 10 litres a second to be metered within four years (2014) and water takes of more than 5 litres a second to be metered within six years (2016).

Bay of Plenty Regional Council has postponed sessions on the new national water metering regulations until October and November.

The sessions, originally organised for this week, will outline how the regulations will affect irrigation consent holders in the Bay and the new council system for supplying water records.