By the end of a ‘Meet the Candidates’ meeting in Cromwell last week (September 19), Slime the Nitrate Monster was getting pretty hot under the collar.

Not from any animosity from the audience or candidates but from wearing a heavy rubber suit in a warm building for two hours.

Slime (aka ecologist, mother and environmentalist Jennifer Shultzitski) is standing for election in the Dunedin Constituency of the Otago Regional Council.

She is one of two Slime Nitrate Monsters residing in the South Island. The other is Canterbury-based and associated with Cut SNF Canterbury. This is a group “concerned about the harms of intensive dairy farming on Canterbury waterways”, according to their social media pages.

Otago’s Slime monster, who stays in character at all times when in the suit, said she didn’t know or associate with any other Nitrate Monsters.

“I only associate as a multi-celled algal organism.”

A determined campaigner against nitrates in waterways, Slime has been busy on the campaign trail in Otago. PHOTO: Jill Herron

Originally from Taranaki, Slime has visited fertiliser works, the Otago Farmers Market, Otago University and various other places in the build-up to the election. According to University of Otago magazine Critic, she hopes to be the first non-human elected to the ORC.

In Cromwell Slime was an audience member at the Rotary and Lion Club’s well-attended event and her tentacle waving presence caused few ripples aside from some polite groans when she stood up for a second go-round at question time.

Using reverse psychology, her pitch is all about supporting fertiliser companies and those that she says allow synthetic nitrates to run-off from farms and other land into rivers, making ‘slime’ grow and thrive.

“As the climate warms up, I will grow and expand. I might even outlive you humans. Bring it on. Vote Slime!”

Prior to the meeting Slime told the Central App some ORC candidates had vested interests in allowing nitrate-containing fertilisers to be used.  

All elected members must declare interests and these matters are legislated through the Local Government Act 2002. Complaints can be made through an Ombudsman.

“I do not know of this Ombudsman,” Slime said.

During question time she asked the four ORC candidates present (Alexa Forbes was absent due to illness) to raise their hand if they had a young person or child they were fond of in their lives. Only Gary Kelliher obliged and the question that followed pertained to what condition rivers like the Lindis, near Tarras, would be in when handed down to the next generation.

Gary responded by saying that through the Environment Court and “a lot of science” a good outcome had resulted for the Lindis River.

A health ‘report card’ for the period from July 2015 to June 2020 shows the Lindis River at Ardgour Road exceeding the ORC’s quality limits for nitrogen. Another report with data from 2016 to 2021 rates general water quality there as ‘Good’ but still shows excess nitrogen.

Twelve monitored sites in Central Otago have data spanning a decade, according to ORC manager of science Tom Dyer.

That data shows that “six sites were unlikely to have had a nitrate trend indicating improvement and three sites were likely to have had a nitrate trend indicating improvement.”

Tom said from the 2016 to 2021 report it was evident that 11 of the 29 sites monitored in Central Otago had nitrite-nitrate nitrogen(NNN) concentrations above the limit set in the ORC’s Regional Plan: Water. 

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