A rural Canterbury family has spent nearly $13,000 trying to make their drinking water safe, but their water-nitrate levels are still higher than they would like.
Greenpeace Aotearoa released the preliminary results of its mail-in nitrate water testing service on Thursday, which found two thirds of bores tested had nitrate levels above those linked to bowel cancer in an international study.
They tested 300 mail-in samples, including 237 from unique bore water supplies.
The results showed 68 per cent of those from bores were over the 0.87 milligrams per litre limit linked to bowel cancer in a major Danish study published in 2018.
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Greenpeace’s testing also found five per cent exceeded the current drinking water standard of 11.3mg/litre.
The standard was set decades ago to avoid only one condition – blue baby syndrome, the potentially fatal disease methemoglobinemia in newborns aged up to three months – and was “hopelessly out of date” according to public health professor Michael Baker.
Of the samples sent in, 41 per cent were from Canterbury.
The average nitrate level in Canterbury samples was 3.51mg/litre. Of those tested, 68 per cent were above 0.87mg/litre, and six per cent were above 11.3mg/litre.
STACY SQUIRES/STUFF
Selwyn residents with private wells had the opportunity to test their nitrate levels in Darfield. Video first published in May 2021.
Iain Piper, who lives on a Leeston lifestyle block with wife Amy and their children, has spent thousands trying to have safe drinking water at home.
Amy Piper’s midwife first alerted them to the problem of nitrate in water when she was pregnant in 2015. They tested their drinking water bore and found nitrate levels of 12.6mg/litre.
Iain Piper said they started sourcing bottled water from nearby Southbridge.
In March 2021, they decided to retest their bore – and it came out at 17.5mg/litre.
Piper spent more than $10,000 drilling a new, deeper well on their property, and in May, they brought a sample to a Greenpeace testing session.
Greenpeace/Supplied
Iain Piper after learning their new well was still reading nitrate levels of 10.3mg/litre.
The new well was still reading nitrate levels of 10.3mg/litre.
“I just about burst into tears really.
“We’d been through this process… we had to borrow some money to do it. To have such a small difference between the old bore and the new bore, I was gutted.”
Earlier this week, after forking over another $2500 for a reverse osmosis machine, Piper had their water retested.
It read 11.4mg/litre straight from the bore, and 4.4mg/litre after running through the machine.
Piper said it wasn’t over yet, and the company that made the reverse osmosis machine was looking at factors that could be impacting how well it worked.
But he said this was an issue that could affect anyone.
“Christchurch’s water comes from bores, just like ours.
“You don’t 100 per cent know until you get those test results. It could happen in Christchurch, [or] Rolleston, or Woodend.
“You never know what’s in your water.”
Most nitrates in New Zealand’s water came from dairy farming runoff. Farmers used synthetic nitrogen fertilisers to add nutrients to the soil, some of which were then ingested by cows and excreted, making their way through the water system.
Supplied
Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel thinks the level of nitrate-nitrogen allowed in drinking water is unsafe. (File photo)
Greenpeace campaigner Steve Abel said access to safe drinking water was a basic human right – but right now it was a postcode lottery for New Zealand rural households.
“Some people whose water we tested were brought to tears, others had spent thousands on filters and drilling deeper wells to try and decontaminate their water supplies of pollution from dairy farms in their region.
“This is a health justice issue.”
The National Environmental Standards Drinking Water review, which was currently under way, was “an opportunity to safeguard clean drinking water for all”, he said.
Greenpeace wanted the Government to address the main causes of water contamination in Aotearoa by banning synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, ending new dairy conversions, and setting stock limits for dairy cows.
Greenpeace/Supplied
Iain Piper has been testing water nitrate levels on his property since 2015.
In a statement, the Fertiliser Association said the farming sector was focused on using nitrogen well.
“Like any tool, they can be used wisely or unwisely in the wider context of good farm management.”
In the 2020 to 2021 year, manufactured nitrogen fertiliser use had decreased 8 per cent, they said, and prices had increased sharply.
“Fertiliser is one of the biggest on-farm expenses, so farmers are incentivised to only use as much as they need.”
In Canterbury, farms were already operating within some of the strictest limits in the country. Analysis using nutrient budgeting tool Overseer suggested nitrogen loss on Canterbury farms had shrunk by a third in the past decade.
The-Timaru-Herald
Activists blame dairy farming for the bulk of water-nitrate pollution (file photo).
The association said it took the challenge posed by Government’s new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management seriously.
While the association did not want to comment on health research, they said the science was far from settled.
They quoted a Bowel Cancer New Zealand statement issued late last year, which concluded nitrates in drinking water were “unlikely to increase the risk of bowel cancer in New Zealand, according to the current weight of evidence”.
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Originally Appeared Here