IDEXX Newsletter

The Pomohaka Water Care Group (PWCG) is a community group of local farmers and landowners working together to understand the effects their activities are having on the local river and how they can reduce their impact.

In Tapanui, South Otago, like many other rural New Zealand towns, farming is the lifeblood of the community, and in some senses the Pomohaka river is the main artery of the region. It’s an integral part of not only the farming activities, but also the recreational activities of the area.

The Pomohaka Water Care Group (PWCG) is a group of local farmers and landowners that have banded together to understand what effect their activities are having in their local river catchment, and crucially how they can mitigate the effect of those activities. They draw on the expertise of many external organisations, like the New Zealand Landcare Trust, Otago Regional Council and Otago University.

Aside from providing over 8,000 plants to farmers in the local region for riparian planting, the group has also recently set up a Best Practice Response Team – think of it as an environmental neighbourhood watch. In addition to that response team the most significant current project that the PWCG is undertaking are their mitigation trials using small constructed wetlands. 
These wetlands are designed to remove E. coli and sediment prior to farm water runoff being discharged into the Pomohaka catchment, and early trials indicate up to 90% removal of E. coli. 
Currently the group are monitoring those wetlands by sending samples to an external lab, a process that can take up to 10 days to get results, but now thanks to IDEXX the farmers themselves can monitor the effect of these wetlands using IDEXX’s world leading Colilert/Quanti-Tray system.

In partnership with the New Zealand Landcare Trust, IDEXX has provided equipment, reagents, and training to the group to enable them to effectively do onsite E. coli analysis. Craig Simpson from the New Zealand Landcare Trust feels that having the PWCG and other groups using the IDEXX method is invaluable. “It provides them an easy and accurate means of monitoring their own backyard, and crucially it is the best science, and is used by water testing laboratories up and down the country” Craig says.

To follow what the PWCG are doing go to www.pwcg.co.nz, or follow them on Facebook @PomohakaCatchmentProject. For more information about what other projects the New Zealand Landcare Trust are involved in go to  www.landcare.org.nz/

IDEXX Water Team