9 February 2007

Launch of Lake Taupo Protection Trust

The Minister for the Environment, the Hon David Benson-Pope, today officially launched the multi-million dollar Protecting Lake Taupo Project.

The launch, at the Lake Taupo Yacht Club in Taupo, marks the start of the largest environmental project of its type. The project aims to protect the pristine water of the lake, which is under threat from nitrogen leaching from land into the lake.

A key feature of the project to protect the lake is the establishment of the Lake Taupo Protection Trust, set up to administer the $81.5 million fund provided by Waikato Regional Council, Taupo District Council, and the Government.

The trust will be accountable to a joint committee, which includes members of the three funding parties - Waikato Regional Council, Taupo District Council, Central Government, and Ngati Tuwharetoa.

The trust is to use the funds to encourage and assist land-use change, and to purchase land/nitrogen in the Lake Taupo catchment, as well as other initiatives to assist landowners to reduce the nitrogen impact of their activities on the lake.

The Lake Taupo Protection Trust's six trustees bring a wide range of skills and experience. Trustees are:

• John Kneebone, of Cambridge, (a former member of the Waitangi Tribunal, former chair of Landcare Research, former director of AFFCO, and a former president of Federated Farmers)
• Gerald Fitzgerald (a lawyer and partner with Kensington Swan from Wellington)
• Colin Horton (an international agricultural consultant based in Hamilton)
• John Hura (chairperson of the Taupo-nui-a-tia Management Board, and a forester from Turangi)
• Jeremy Rickman (a chartered accountant and company director)
• Susan Yerex (a drystock farmer, and founding member of Taupo Lakecare Group from Turangi).
  
  

Background
Lake Taupo's excellent water quality is under threat from the effects of past and current land use activities.

More nutrient-dependent weeds and slimes are now growing near lakeshore settlements, and potentially toxic algae blooms in 2001 and 2003 brought health warnings for Whakaipo and Omori bays. These are unmistakeable signs that the lake is slowly deteriorating.

About 94 percent of manageable nitrogen entering the lake comes from stock effluent on farmland leaching through soil into groundwater and rivers, and ultimately into the lake. The remaining 6 percent of manageable nitrogen came predominantly from urban wastewater, such as sewage and septic tank seepage. Taupo urban ratepayers are contributing to an upgrade of all the urban wastewater sewage systems.

Nitrogen feeds the growth of tiny free-floating algae which impact on the lake's health and water clarity.

The Lake Taupo Protection Trust is aiming to achieve a 20 per cent reduction in nitrogen entering the lake from both rural and urban sources over 15 years.

Regional council Waikato Regional Council has already introduced a proposed ‘Variation' or change to the proposed Waikato Regional Plan for the Taupo catchment to ‘cap' nitrogen entering the lake.