Murray Wards said the point of the Gore Catchment Group’s Community Open Day yesterday, on his Waimumu farm, was to show how easy it was to build a small, yet effective, wetlands.
Mr Wards started the project on January 31 and, once excavated, the pond was filling with water by Easter.
In his testing, he noticed that water going into the wetlands, which took a month to pass through, was coming out the other side with an average of 30% less nitrogen.
Nitrates were not as much of an issue for his area as they were in the valley of Gore, and the small pond was actually designed to filter phosphorous from the water.
Phosphorous in freshwater caused unwanted algae to bloom, he said.
The small project had turned into a larger educational one and there were two planting sessions with Enviroschools run by Environment Southland.
The Enviroschools visits included local schools, and ones from as far as Bluff, teaching them about the wetlands, wildlife and tree planting.
The programme was in action again yesterday, led by Environment Southland education adviser Jane Tagomoa, who helped schoolchildren plant kahikatea around the wetlands.
