Best Practice Response Team
The Pomahaka Water Care Group is committed to being bold and trying new strategies in order to achieve its goals for the Pomahaka River. The latest initiative is a farmer-led team named the Best Practice Response Team (BPRT), which has been established to provide feedback and advice to farmers, in the Pomahaka catchment, who are the subject of referrals from third party groups and individuals such as the ORC, community members, or other farmers. This team formally started operating on 1 February, 2019.
How the Best Practice Response Team works:
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Referrals to the BPRT will be communicated via text or voice message to 027 POMAHAK (027 7662425)
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When received the message is processed by an administrator who then allocates the referral to a pair of BPRT volunteers. In all cases, the identity of the person making the referral will be known only to the administrator. To ensure complete confidentiality the name of the person making the referral will not be known to the BPRT volunteers.
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The BPRT volunteers will make contact with those who are the subject of the referral and if appropriate, will offer their assistance. Those subject to referrals are under no obligation to accept help from the BPRT volunteers and a polite decline to BPRT members will end the process.
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Referrals can be related to any matter which will adversely affect water quality, and could include (but not limited to) waterway fencing and management, sediment movement, issues associated with crop establishment or winter grazing.
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The BPRT has not been established to deal with compliance issues or issues relating to dairy effluent, these issues should be addressed to the ORC Pollution Hotline.
The PWCG and the members of the BPRT are community members with no powers of enforcement - they just have a desire to help, with the overall goal of improving water quality in the catchment's rivers and streams.