Court to decide on legality of Environment Canterbury’s nitrate pollution rule

We are challenging Environment Canterbury’s blanket rule allowing nitrate pollution in the Christchurch High Court this week.

“Canterbury holds the majority of Aotearoa's freshwater, but this public resource is significantly degraded,” says ELI’s Senior Researcher, Anna Sintenie. 

The main culprit is nitrogen, wasted from farming systems, and flowing into freshwater and groundwater systems, where it accumulates.   

“We’ve had this national effort to restore rivers, streams and lakes to health within a generation, but rules like this make or break whether that can be achieved,” says Sintenie. 

In 2013 the Canterbury Regional Council introduced new nutrient management rules for farming across the region, as part of the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan.   

The Plan introduced a new rule which allowed nitrogen pollution of freshwater by farms. It is this rule that ELI is challenging in court, arguing it didn’t meet the requirements of the Resource Management Act (RMA).  

“We believe this rule was unlawfully put in place without meeting the requirements of section 70 of the RMA,” says Sintenie. 

To have fulfilled their obligations under section 70, Environment Canterbury needed to be satisfied that significant adverse effects on aquatic life are not likely to arise from a rule or action.  

“We argue that Environment Canterbury failed to do this and therefore the pollution rule is unlawful.   

Sintenie says ELI is also arguing that the Council has been illegally permissive of intensive farming activities, where significant nitrate pollution is having effect on freshwater ecosystem health and drinking water supplies. 

“We want Environment Canterbury to show it is making decisions that will protect the health of Canterbury’s waterways and people for generations to come,” says Sintenie. 

The case is the first of two High Court hearings against Environment Canterbury by ELI this month. 

In the second hearing next week, ELI will challenge Environment Canterbury's 2021 decision granting MHV Water Ltd a consent to discharge nitrogen over more than 58,000 hectares in the Hinds/Hekeao Plains.  

Sintenie says ELI will argue that this consent was issued unlawfully, mirroring the reasoning relating to s107 of the RMA previously deemed illegal in a previous High Court judgment on the Ashburton Lyndhurst Irrigation Ltd scheme.  

Additionally, ELI will argue that the Council failed to properly consider the potential impacts on local drinking water supplies.