A government plan to clean up the country's waterways is being labelled a failure.

Environment Minister Nick Smith has released a consultation paper on fresh water quality, with a plan to fence all waterways to keep out wandering stock by 2030.

There'll also be a $100 million dollar fund to help clean up waterways.

But Choose Clean Water's Marnie Prickett said the proposal doesn't set strong enough health standards.

She's calling swimmable water to be a minimum quality standard...and not wadeable.

"The priority is clean water because that must be the priority of all New Zealanders...we want healthy families and we want healthy kids and we want a healthy environment for our kids to grow up in. Without clean water we can't have that."