If National wins ...

[craic]

Came in the back door 57 years ago without even a passport. Eventually gained residency but never bothered with citizenship. "It's all about money"?All my money is still in my pocket. The same rules and categories exist, even under a Labour government - if we ever see one again - maybe in Australia?

[elZorro]

Came in the back door 57 years ago without even a passport. Eventually gained residency but never bothered with citizenship. "It's all about money"?All my money is still in my pocket. The same rules and categories exist, even under a Labour government - if we ever see one again - maybe in Australia?

Even with this right-wing swing worldwide, I still give the Labour-Green coalition a better than even chance in 2017. As long as they don't bottle it, and stick up for their policies. The voting public can handle it.

Here's something that caught my eye yesterday, in the Herald.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/ne...ectid=11789175

On the face of it, a good argument, and the farmer concerned had some good points. Really?

Jacqueline Rowarth, a right-wing apologist now Chief Scientist for the EPA, got into trouble with the same fact about the Waikato River. In terms of major rivers worldwide that have been ranked by the OECD (many haven't), the Waikato is currently the fifth cleanest in terms of nitrate loading (unsure if that's an average reading over the length or not). But the rivers ranking lower all have huge human populations nearby, the Waikato doesn't. Lower Waikato is more polluted of course. You don't swim in that, as a rule.

A human lives 11x longer than a cow on average, so they might be matched in terms of lifetime effluent. But, the cow is usually culled at age 7 or earlier when it could have lived to 25 years old, and is immediately replaced with a heifer that was brought through on the same farm, or somewhere nearby. So since in fact a cow produces 14x the effluent of a human each year, and the cow is effectively replaced, we have 6.4million cows x 14, or the equivalent of an additional 90 million humans providing largely point source pollution, compared to the populace of 4.5 million running through some kind of effluent system.

I'm not going to get into the argument about water use in towns, or other pollution sources, for many people it wouldn't be a big effect overall. Many farms are now irrigating, probably not Mr Lumsden, but the water use is not just the cow consumption, it can be a lot higher.

Point source pollution by cows is not all trapped in the plants, a proportion leaches out. Some dairy effluent also certainly enters the waterways. Treatment of the effluent can be nearly as good as urban treatment, but good municipal discharge quality is probably obtained from the far reduced entry points. There are over 10,000 dairy farms, and they are not monitored nearly as hard for their effluent discharges.

Cows are also injected with antibiotics and other chemicals, this can find its way into milk and effluent. Those cows aren't as organic as you'd think.

The Taupo catchment is being protected from nutrient discharge into the crystal clear heritage Lake Taupo. Long may it continue, I'm happy to pay something towards it in my rates. The local council may ask farmers for records on their fert use, stock holdings etc. This is not a look at their books as Mr Lumsden implies, and anyway such info is kept confidential.

What Mr Lumsden hasn't mentioned, is that his large low-lying dairy farm borders Lake Waikare, a very shallow and hypertrophic lake that won't even support many aquatic weeds. It had its natural level reduced by a metre a few decades ago, after (I assume) some pressure from local farming interests. It's also an emergency ponding area if the Waikato River breaches the road at Rangiriri.

I mention all this because it's part of the bigger picture. We are being fed comments, patter, carefully massaged facts, and unless we look into them harder, we'll remain ignorant of what is really going on. John Key was especially good at it, but many National Party hacks are also picking up the reins.

[GTM 3442]

It was one of the "Think Big" projects, and like the Huntly Power Station, it's still around, so it wasn't too crazy an idea. Both would have employed many people for the construction works, they gained skills and paid taxes.

http://www.kiwirail.co.nz/about-us/h...ification.html

Of course a Labour Govt must have helped see this through, the project didn't open until 1988.

The rose-tinting is strong today. . .

[craic]

There is a simple solution to most water worries - install a rain tank. I noticed while passing through residential areas in Brisbane and other towns that they are very common. Rain water is clean and drinkable. The collected water is not wasted, it is passed back into the system. And tank owners are not subject to hosing restrictions. Now there's an idea for Labour to run with at the next election. We've been there for twenty-five years.

[dobby41]

There is a simple solution to most water worries - install a rain tank. I noticed while passing through residential areas in Brisbane and other towns that they are very common. Rain water is clean and drinkable. The collected water is not wasted, it is passed back into the system. And tank owners are not subject to hosing restrictions. Now there's an idea for Labour to run with at the next election. We've been there for twenty-five years.

Drinkable depending on the roof it is collected from.
Tanks are only as good as the amount of rain you get!

[macduffy]

The Wellington City Council is well ahead of any possible Labour party initiative here. Subsidised water tanks were a big part of promoting earthquake readiness awareness following quakes in recent years.

[Baa_Baa]

The Wellington City Council is well ahead of any possible Labour party initiative here. Subsidised water tanks were a big part of promoting earthquake readiness awareness following quakes in recent years.

Do you mean the 200 litre tanks? Yes that's a good initiative for a very temporary suburban 'get through it' situation following a disaster, albeit a very limited supply which wouldn't last most households more than a few days, even on rations.

I've read somewhere that if the Wellington (inc the Hutt Valley) supply was ruptured from from the Trentham lakes, it would/could be weeks or longer to restore supply. Let alone if the supply lines were completely destroyed.

To illustrate, my place is not on town water supply, we have about 50,000 litres in two tanks and even that is stretched during prolonged summer droughts (unlike this year) however we have never completely run out of water, albeit coming very close some years.

I laugh when we stay away from home, the kids hate the taste of any town water, they say it tastes of chemicals, they boil it before drinking it, LOL!.

At home it tastes of pure distilled water from the sky, flavoured by whatever happens to be swept off the roof. Nothing that a half cup of chlorine in the tanks from time to time can't fix, and none of us have ever been sick from our off grid water supply.

Would be nice if the government had subsidised my investment in water supply, but I doubt whether National, Labour, Green or any other party would give a toss.

[craic]

Exactly my experience. And it makes great whiskey.

[craic]

Will the Labour party extend its affair with the Greens to include K.D. Com who has announced his intention to apply for NZ Citizenship and Stand for Parliament in the next election? They might even be able to squeeze Hone H into the envelope.

[elZorro]

Will the Labour party extend its affair with the Greens to include K.D. Com who has announced his intention to apply for NZ Citizenship and Stand for Parliament in the next election? They might even be able to squeeze Hone H into the envelope.

Craic, I think Labour will be smart enough to just run with the Greens for 2017. That's enough for people to get their heads around, that it might be the best thing for NZ, ever.

Anyway my previous post wasn't about rainwater or water quality, it was about brainwashing. As collecting rainwater makes sense even on a small scale, you won't find an argument against that by the Greens, or Labour. The dairy farming lobby want the spotlight off their 90mill human equivalent waste issue. Put another way, for every human in NZ, there are 20 animal effluent equivalents in the form of cows, who are not under full control when it comes to where they might 'take a dump'. That takes some cleaning up, doesn't it?