Greenpeace says Fonterra\u2019s reported $3.4 billion in profit should be spent on supporting rural communities in Canterbury to clean up their water from Fonterra\u2019s nitrate pollution.<\/p>\n\n
Greenpeace Programme Director Niamh O\u2019Flynn says, \u201cToday, Fonterra is patting itself on the back for making 3.4 billion dollars in profit \u2013 profit made through poisoning rural people\u2019s drinking water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cFor Fonterra to announce this obscene profit, as nitrate pollution increases, is a kick in the teeth for people on the ground who can\u2019t safely drink the water from their kitchen taps. Many of these same people were told just yesterday by ECAN that they are personally responsible for footing the bill to make their poisoned drinking water safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe first step is to stop the pollution. Then, Fonterra\u2019s profits should go towards ensuring that Cantabrians have access to clean, safe drinking water, instead of lining the pockets of their shareholders and executives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Just yesterday, Environment Canterbury \u201cresolved\u201d the nitrate emergency it declared last year, and voted against investigating options to make dairy industry polluters pay to clean up nitrate contamination in rural drinking water.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe intensive dairy industry has poisoned rural drinking water with nitrate, putting communities\u2019 health at risk. And those same communities have just been hung out to dry by regional councillors, who have opted to put the burden of dealing with that poisoned water back on the individuals,\u201d says O\u2019Flynn.<\/p>\n\n
Greenpeace says Environment Canterbury\u2019s nitrate emergency declaration was an opportunity for the regional council to hold corporations like Fonterra accountable for their pollution \u2013 and that yesterday, it failed to do that.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYesterday, nine councillors voted to let agribusiness off the hook for their pollution and push the costs of dealing with nitrate contamination back onto rural families. They should be ashamed that they\u2019ve thrown rural Cantabrians under the tractor and given the intensive dairy industry a free pass to continue polluting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIn the last year, ECan has approved the addition of tens of thousands of cows to the Canterbury herd. They\u2019ve voted against the provision of free water testing for people on private bores, and they\u2019ve allowed the Government to prevent them from advocating for their communities\u2019 access to safe drinking water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cEnvironment Canterbury has a bare minimum responsibility to continue advocating for its constituents, and to ensure that nitrate contamination is stopped at the source. Right now, it\u2019s doing neither.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fonterra has announced a whopping $3.4 billion in profits, while rural communities can’t safely drink the water coming out of their kitchen taps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":59757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[22,23],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-78981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-freshwater","tag-health","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\n