DAIRY NEWS JUNE 12, 2018
12 // NEWS
Dairy conversion r NIGEL MALTHUS
AFTER FIFTEEN
A map of Simon Pass Station’s ‘landscape values’ prepared by DoC.
years of planning and red tape, a controversial large dairy conversion in the Mackenzie Basin is expected to be up and running next season, despite environmentalists’
ongoing opposition. Construction of the first of three planned dairy shes, and the main pipeline for an extensive irrigation system is now well underway on Simons Pass station. Owner Murray Valentine, a Dunedin accountant with other large
agricultural and commercial interests, says the main irrigation pipeline is now 50-60% complete and irrigation will start late October. Valentine has since 2003 worked on the various consenting requirements of ECan, the Mackenzie District Council and LINZ; and after six years effort he has gained Environment Court agreement; a large part of the property will go into a conservation area. This is why he doesn’t hide his frustration that Simons Pass is now the focus of a fast-growing online Greenpeace petition calling on the government to prohibit new dairy conversions. Greenpeace’s accompanying press release describes Simons Pass as “a major dairy incursion into wilderness coun-
try” and “a massive dairy operation for up to 15,000 cows”. Valentine says he has never had a plan to put 15,000 dairy cows on the farm. He does have a discharge consent for effluent for up to 15,000 cows but points out that like all consents it comes with the obligation to manage nutrient discharge using Overseer. “So we haven’t got an open slather to put 15,000 cows on the farm and just lift our fingers to everybody. “Saying that we’re doing 15,000 is a much better publicity thing than saying that we’ve got to complete an Overseer report, work out our nutrient discharge, and that will determine our stocking rate. That’s not what people want to hear if they’re on the Green-
Better late than never – Greenpeace GREENPEACE’S SUSTAINABLE agriculture campaigner Gen Toop says even dairy farmers are supporting their campaign against further intensification of dairying. “Several dairy farmers have contacted us on social media and identified themselves as dairy farmers, and totally agree with our campaign,” said Toop. “We haven’t really had that before, in our work.” Greenpeace in early May used aerial drone footage of the irrigation pipeline being built for the Simons Pass dairy conversion to launch a petition calling on the government to prohibit all new dairy conversions and further intensification of existing livestock farms. Toop said the petition was one of their fastestgrowing, recently passing 26,000 signatures. “We are highlighting what’s happening there because obviously the Mackenzie is not cow country. It’s dry, its soils are leaky and its very ecologically sensitive.” Although neither Greenpeace nor the EDS had been party to the Environment Court appeal giving the Simons Pass development the go-ahead, Greenpeace believes the fight isn’t over. “Better late than never,” said Toop. “It’s every New Zealander’s right to stand up and try to stop intensive dairying from ruining the Mackenzie and polluting our rivers and lakes.” Valentine’s claim that he would put only about 5000 dairy cows on the farm “has no standing” as long as the consent for effluent from 15,000 had not been terminated, she said. Nor did he yet have consents for all the planned dairy sheds. Greenpeace would also oppose freeholding under tenure review, in the belief that without freehold the project would be financially unviable. – Nigel Malthus