May 04, 2014
Deal allows Lake Rotorua clean up
Rotorua MP Todd McClay says a $48 million plan to clean up Lake Rotorua will allow farming to continue while water quality improves.
The plan will be jointly funded by the Government and Bay of Plenty Regional Council.
Mr McLays says the issue had dragged on for a decade and could have ended up being decided by the courts.
Instead he instigated negotiations between the Lakes Water Quality Society and the rural sector to find a solution everyone could agree on
"Iwi are part of that because a lot of the land in the Rotorua catchment is owned by iwi, it has different uses but a lot of it is farmed. I decided to pull them together and we spent probably six months talking to each other and going through the issues addressing them reaching agreement."
"And finally, the agreement, we called it the Waiora Agreement, was that we all wanted to clean up the lake, we agreed the measurements of what a clean lake would be but we also accepted and agreed we needed sustainable farming," says Todd McLay.
Todd McLay says the lake is not polluted, but it is rich in nitrogen and has problems also with phosphorus.
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