The council wants to ensure all waterways and wetlands are fenced and planted to national water quality expectations.
The new auditing of onfarm work has already thrown up a need for one last big effort to comply by a former regional councillor, who thought the end of a long and expensive riparian programme was near.
Ian and Judith Armstrong have two dairy farms totalling 673ha at Te Kiri, near Opunake in South Taranaki.
They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fencing 46km of waterways and 24km of the riparian zones have been planted over nearly 30 years.
The five waterways that cross the farms have been fenced, some on both sides, and other boundary streams on just one side, along with perhaps 100 crossings, either bridges or culverts, placed.
Two of those waterways are dry during the summer, he said.
The Armstrongs have planted about 1500 plants every year by themselves and now need another 10,000 planted this year by a contractor to gain a Riparian Management Plan Compliance Certificate.
Plants must be ordered in advance, especially if large numbers are required to beat the 2020 deadline, TRC warned.
Ian Armstrong said a $3 to $5 plant would cost another $2.50 to get in the ground, plus follow-up releasing from grass competition and the replacement costs for about 20% that died.
“Along with the fencing costs we estimate another $100,000 to get compliance,” he said.
The council’s requirement to plant out most riparian strips, rather than leave them in long grass, would result in woody weed infestations, which would have to be tackled in the future, Armstrong said.
Permanent or intermittently flowing waterways wider than one metre have to be two-wire fenced and planted on both sides.
Narrower waterways might be planted on the northern side only, leaving the southern side as a grass buffer.
Taranaki had led the way in riparian planting because of the unique need to fence hundreds of rivers and streams that flowed off Mt Taranaki and the willingness of land-owners, Armstrong said.
Council advisory officers had provided free consultations and plans while farmers responded to inspiring examples, highlighted by the Farm Environment Awards.
Asked what benefits had resulted from such a long and expensive riparian plan, he said doing the responsible thing, seeing the return of many native birds and the satisfaction of environmental enhancement.
The need for livestock crossings and stock water reticulation were related costs.
The counil’s 2017 Healthy Waterways report showed water health had the best trends in 21 years of monitoring.
The council said a significant increase in riparian planting was needed to finish requirements by 2020.
To date, 4325km of streambanks had been fenced and 2387km planted.
But there was still 2272km of fencing and 3432km of planting to do.
That came somewhat as a surprise to the regional council and to the province’s landowners but was a result of Taranaki having a higher standard, including planting requirements.
Native plants through the council’s scheme might not be available at wholesale rates to those who left it too late, land services manager Don Shearman said.
Taranaki’s riparian programme has attracted international attention and is the biggest programme of its kind in the country helping manage freshwater health.
