Govt's $44m pledge to clean up rivers

About 100 New Zealand rivers will be cleaned up with the help of $44 million in grants, the Government has announced.

The funding announcement appears timed to steal a march on Labour, which is expected to release its own freshwater policy on Wednesday.

In May this year, the Government announced a $100 million freshwater improvement fund, and this is the first allocation of that money.

Environment Minister Nick Smith said the first tranche of funding would lead to an investment of about $140 million in 33 projects, including, water storage, fencing off waterways, water reticulation, riparian planting, removal of pests, and retiring land for wetlands.

In all, 1000km of waterways would be improved as a result of the projects, Dr Smith said, including Lake Tarawera in Bay of Plenty, the Manawatu River and Lake Wanaka.

Announcing the policy on Tuesday afternoon, Prime Minister Bill English said freshwater was at the heart of New Zealand's international branding for tourism and exporting and was prized by New Zealanders.

Asked why taxpayers should cover the costs of industry's pollution, Mr English said farmers and others were already taking steps to deal with effluent control.

Dr Smith said some council projects were being held up by lack of funding, and instead of "getting all pure" and insisting on polluter-pays, the Government wanted to "get on with the job".

The minister denied that the announcement had been timed to get in before Labour's policy release. It had been scheduled for announcement at an environmental conference tomorrow, but was instead revealed ad-hoc in Parliament this afternoon.

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern is expected to say tomorrow that she will introduce a levy on water bottling companies if her party gets into power. The Greens and New Zealand First have already proposed similar policies.

Dr Smith said the Government was open to water pricing and officials were expected to report back on possible options after the September 23 election, in December.

"It does need to be done with some care or you could do some brutal economic damage to New Zealand's most important industries."

Dr Smith said a levy of 10 cents per litre would cripple farmers, costing them $600 billion a year.

Green Party co-leader James Shaw said no one was proposing a levy of 10 cents for all water users across the country. His party wanted a more sophisticated pricing method which varied according to location and water use.

The Greens also wanted more measures which stopped pollution from getting into waterways in the first place.

"Otherwise, as is seen from this announcement, you have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars cleaning it up."

Where the money's going:

Northland:$2,519,223
Auckland: $1,042,500
Gisborne: $847,450
Bay of Plenty: $8,250,000
Waikato: $1,641,638
Taranaki: $2m.
Hawkes Bay: $3,496,156
Manawatu-Whanganui: $5,843,923
Wellington: $2,171,625
Tasman: $7m.
Marlborough: $519,950
Canterbury: $2,693,586
Otago: $375,000
Southland: $5m.