Benchmarking information forms

On this page: Background, changes to reduce nitrogen, benchmarking, OVERSEER® nutrient budgets, the next step, benchmarking information forms, summary of terms

Background

Intensifying rural land use, and to some extent urban growth around Lake Taupo over the past 50 years, has increased the amount of nitrogen entering the lake.

Approximately 93 per cent of the manageable nitrogen entering the lake comes from pastoral land use. Stock urine makes up a large part of this percentage. That’s because it contains high levels of nitrogen – more than plants can use or soil can store, so most of it ends up leaching down through the soil, into groundwater and rivers, and ultimately into the lake. Wastewater from treated sewage and septic tank seepage has contributed around seven per cent of the manageable nitrogen load to the lake.

The risk of nitrate leaching is higher over the winter months of May, June and July when the soil is much wetter.

Changes to reduce nitrogen

Rules adopted by the Waikato Regional Council in March 2007 cap the amount of nitrogen leaching from rural and urban properties into the lake. The changes make most existing farming activities in the Taupo catchment a controlled activity when they do not meet the permitted activity requirements.

This means that as at 1 July 2007, rural land owners farming in the area on 9 July 2005 (when the variation to the Waikato Regional Plan for the Taupo catchment was notified) can continue farming but will likely require a resource consent to do so.

Benchmarking

Under the controlled activity rule (Waikato Regional Plan rule number 3.10.5.3), each rural property will have a Nitrogen Discharge Allowance (NDA) which ‘caps’ the amount of nitrogen that can leach from the property.

To determine the NDA for each property we need to work with land owners to benchmark the amount of nitrogen leaching from their property using the OVERSEER® nutrient budgeting model. For each property, nitrogen leaching that occurred on an annual basis from July 2001 to June 2005 will be estimated using OVERSEER^TM and the year of highest discharge will be identified as the maximum annual NDA the land owner must adhere to for that property.

Knowing what your Nitrogen Discharge Allowance means you’ll have a better idea of the farm activities you’ll be able to carry out within the nitrogen cap. With that knowledge, you’ll be able to make business plans and start thinking about how you might manage your farm practices to stay within this level. Alternatively you will be able to consider potential trades of nitrogen with other land holders to either increase or decrease the nitrogen leaching on your site.

The Lake Taupo Protection Trust also needs to know what the NDAs are in the catchment. The trust will use this information to develop an overall plan for reducing the amount of nitrogen going into the lake by 20 per cent using the public fund set up by the government, Waikato Regional Council and Taupo District Council.

Given this, we’d like to complete the benchmarking process as soon as possible, but to do this we need you to provide us with information about your farm operation by completing the OVERSEER® benchmarking information forms– there’s one for each financial year.

OVERSEER® nutrient budgets

To help you complete the OVERSEER® benchmarking information forms we’ve provided a description below of the information you need for each section of the forms.

If you have any questions about the benchmarking process or need help completing the budgets, please call staff in our Taupo office on (07) 378 6539.

Once these are done, they can be submitted to Waikato Regional Council in order to establish a benchmark for your site. Our Taupo office address is:
Cnr Titiraupenga and Paora Hapi Streets
PO Box 501
Taupo 3330

You may want to take a copy for your own records and keep them filed. Alternatively, we can send a copy back to you – just ask.