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Farm environment plans for Waimea Plains' landowners are earmarked for development, a move that may help tackle elevated levels of nitrate in the groundwater. ....
Waimea Plains farm environment plans tipped for summer stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Braden Fastier/Stuff Grape grower Brian Halstead says members of the Waimea Irrigators and Water Users incorporated society believe the council should not “continue to drag its feet” over the issue of nitrates in the groundwater. Tests of some bores in 2019, arranged by Waimea Plains landowner Cathy Hughson and fellow Tasman District resident Lew Solomon, also showed some nitrate levels exceeded the drinking water standards. The Richmond urban water supply is drawn from aquifers under the plains. In the 2019 tests arranged by Hughson and Solomon, that water supply had a nitrate reading of about 5.1mg/L nitrate-nitrogen, well below the drinking water standards of 11.3. ....
Virginia Woolf/Stuff The level of nitrate in the waters under parts of the Waimea Plains has long been of concern. Agricultural and livestock land uses are the primary sources of nitrate contamination in the waters on and under the Waimea Plains, a new report has found. A summary of existing science from catchment management consultant Andrew Fenemor for the Tasman District Council said monthly groundwater data suggested that historic contamination from a piggery that closed in the 1980s has “likely passed and that the nitrate signature in these wells is caused by local and upstream intensive land uses, particularly market gardening”. ....