Watch: Cancer Water - The nitrate contamination of rural water supplies in Aotearoa New Zealand

Steve Abel

17 March 2022 1 min read

Watch this short documentary of a community in Canterbury struggling with drinking water contaminated with nitrates that come from intensive dairying and Ravensdown & Ballance’s synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.

PETITION: Ban synthetic nitrogen fertiliser

Sign on now to call on the New Zealand Govt to ban chemical nitrogen fertiliser.

Take Action

If you live off rural bore water, you can still sign up for free mail-in water nitrate contamination testing here.

#Food&Farming

About the author

Steve Abel

Steve Abel is a long-time environmental and climate activist who was part of the successful campaign to end native logging on crown la…nd in the late 1990s; the GE Free environment campaign in the early 2000s; the Greenpeace campaign to stop Marsden B coalfired power station in 2005; and the alliance with Te Whānau-ā-Apanui against Petrobras which led to a seven-year campaign that culminated in the end to offshore oil and gas exploration in Aotearoa in 2018. Abel is part of the urban tree protection group – Mana Rākau – which emerged from the 240+ day occupation of the Canal Road native tree stand in Avondale that began in 2020. From 2021, as Senior Campaigner for Greenpeace Aotearoa, Steve led the project to provide free nitrate water testing for rural people on bore supplies impacted by dairy contamination. Having first volunteered for Greenpeace in 1997, Abel resigned from the organisation in early 2023 to stand for parliament.

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Watch: Cancer Water – The nitrate contamination of rural water supplies in Aotearoa New Zealand

About the author

Steve Abel

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