Some Farmers Polluting Rivers with Cows

Some Farmers Polluting with Cows

Have you ever wanted to Swim in the Water, jump off a tall Cliff into the River, or have a Camp by the River, with your friends and family? Well do it now or never, because according to the Ministry of Enviroment, more than 60% of monitored Rivers are un-safe for swimming. A major source of pollution is Dairy Farming. If we don’t sort this out with the Farmers now, it’s going to be us kids that have to deal with it in the future. I don’t think it’s fair that we have to clean up other people’s mess.

SOME Farmers don’t take responsibility and blame it on other people, or just egnore the fact they are polluting the Rivers. According to a NZ forest and bird report, fetilizer use has increased 800% in the last 20 years. More than 90% of NZ wetland have been drained to make way for Farming. 50% of our lakes are classified eutrophic, Which means they have more Nutrients than they can handle.

The reason Dairy Farming has become a problem, is the use of high density farming has dramatically increased run off from the land to the lakes and Rivers. This puts Nutrients like Nitrogen, and Toxins like Disolved Oxegeon into the water. What this means is there are too many Nutrients in our Lakes and Rivers, and they are un-able to support that much.

One way to solve this problem could be by Planting trees along the River banks to suck up all the Nutrients we don’t need, and only let the clear water come out with no Nutrients, so pretty much it is a natural filter. There is a bank by the water called Queens chain, the chain could be used to plant trees in, other than having them put in other un-nessasary spaces.

Did you know 1.4 million people die from water pollution in Africa and India every year? Even though we might be a little country we are in the top 10 country’s with Water Pollution, and save our future! Thank you for listening.

-Deana Kydd