The Canterbury regional council has suspended all farm environment plan audits while it considers the implications of Government’s review of Overseer.
Environment Canterbury (ECan) has written to all its consent holders with farm environment plan (FEP) audits due this year advising that FEP audits have been suspended.
The decision follows the less than favourable Government review report of the nutrient loss modelling tool Overseer.
ECan suggests farmers who have not yet prepared an Overseer nutrient budget to hold off meantime, noting that they will not be graded as non-compliant.
ECan chief executive Stefanie Rixecker says Overseer is used extensively in Canterbury to model nutrient losses from land uses and in the regulatory framework.
“It is important for our consenting compliance monitoring and enforcement and farm environment plan auditing processes.
“Our Resource Management Act (RMA) plans and consents use Overseer to maintain or improve water quality by minimising nitrate-nitrogen losses.
“We now need to take the time to consider the review so we can be clear about how these processes may be impacted,” Rixecker said.
Overseer is one of the few ways that nutrient looses from land can be estimated meaning it is a significant way of managing water quality.
“We acknowledge the challenges farmers and the wider community are facing in the freshwater space at present and we will always be mindful of those.
“As soon as we have decided how we will respond to the review, we will contact those likely to be affected.
“We are working as quickly as we can to provide as much certainty to our community as possible.”
Rixecker says ECan welcomes government’s commitment to continue to support Overseer while it investigates providing upgraded, and or next-generation tools over the next 12 months.
The regional council’s proposed Plan Change 7 (PC7) and PC2 to the Waimakariri River Regional Plan (PC2) are nearing the end of the RMA process.
“We want to understand the Overseer review outcome before council makes a decision on whether to accept the PC7 and PC2 hearing commissioners’ recommendations.”
Council has applied to the Minister for the Environment for an extension to the timeframe to make its decision.
Meanwhile ECan consents planning manager Aurora Grant says work is under way to get the audit programme running again.
“This will be, as soon as we’ve worked through an interim approach with mana whenua and key industry groups including auditors themselves.”
In the interim farmers should continue to implement good management practices and other auditing requirements on farm, Grant said.
