Mackenzie country faces more challenges, Greens say

Canterbury's Mackenzie country isn't safe despite a plan for intensive dairy farming being shelved, the Green Party says.

The plan by three companies to create intensive dairy farms has been put on hold because the consent process is too costly.

Five Rivers Ltd, Southdown Holdings Ltd and Williamson Holdings Ltd applied for farm developments in the Omarama and Ohau areas involving up to 17,850 cows which would be housed in cubicle stables 24 hours a day for eight months of the year, and 12 hours a day for the remaining four months.

The scheme, called factory farming by its opponents, would have involved the disposal of up to 1.8 million litres of dairy effluent a day.

The companies were told yesterday resource consent applications would cost them at least $2.6 million -- which they described as "absolutely extraordinary".

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said it was a victory for the green movement.

"But now we face further challenges," he said. "The applicants, and many others, are still proceeding with their applications to take water for irrigation in the upper Waitaki so that many tens of thousands of cows can appear on the landscape."

Dr Norman said the result would be a massive loss of biodiversity as the rare tussock ecosystem would be destroyed and replaced by green grass.

"The applications will also result in ground and surface water contamination on a massive scale as cow effluent seeps through the ecosystem and into the alpine lakes in the Waitaki catchment," he said.

"They will destroy forever the distinctive Mackenzie landscape." Dr Norman called on the Government to urgently develop a National Policy Statement for the Mackenzie country so there could be a considered plan for the whole region.

"These applications for factory-style dairy farms were only possible because of years of neglect by the previous Labour government, which looked the other way while dairy corporations appropriated the water and made a mess of large parts of the Mackenzie," he said.