Tom Kay and Marnie Prickett from Choose Clean Water travelled from north to south last year highlighting issues about water pollution.

Several years ago while she was working with school children, clean water campaigner Marnie Prickett had an epiphany.

"I'd been telling them they held the future in their hands, that they would be the agents of change. And then I thought 'that's such a burden to place on children'.

"That's when I decided it was time to get off my butt and do something."

DAVID UNWIN/STUFF Marnie Prickett addressing a gathering of 2000 students in Manawatu for a National Young Leaders Day event.

And do something she has, resulting in recognition at this year's New Zealand River Awards as the "River Voice" - an individual who is an outstanding communicator/advocate for rivers.

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Last year Prickett spearheaded the Choose Clean Water campaign, which took its message the length and breadth of the country for a month, stopping off at rivers to meet citizens concerned at what pollution was doing to their waterways.

"I'd never run a campaign before, it was hugely stressful filming every day, talking to the media. What I gained was a sense of desperation from people."

It helped she was in the middle of studying for a Masters in Agricultural Science and understood the issues.

Prickett, 33, is a latecomer to science. Humanities was her preferred academic field, having graduated with an English literature degree.

After university the Aucklander headed overseas where she held down a variety of jobs, including being a Willing Worker on Organic Farms (WWOOF), where she discovered her love of working outdoors.

Back in New Zealand she worked in a market garden for three years before a three-and-a-half year stint at Wai Care, an Auckland Council water monitoring and education programme.

"It was the best job I ever had, taking children out to streams, showing them what was in there and monitoring them."

But then came the realisation that she should be an agent for change, and the need for a science degree to back it up.

While still working for Wai Care she began extra-mural study at Massey University and then came another turning point when she heard freshwater ecologist Dr Mike Joy speak.

"I asked him what needed to be done, and he told me others had asked the same thing, so we joined together."

She says her concept of New Zealand's environment was a naive one, one common to many who had been taught the mantra that while the country had biodiversity problems, fundamentally it was still in relatively good shape.

In 2014 the group created the Freshwater Foundation, a charitable trust set up to make Kiwis aware of the issues around freshwater.

With the National government's announcement in 2015 that it would revise the national water policy statement on freshwater management the following year, Prickett and her group stepped up the political activism.

They hit on the idea of travelling the country on a "Choose Clean Water" tour, partly funded by the Tourism Export Council.

Prickett and her fellow advocates Geoff Reid, Paul Boyce, and Kyleisha Foote, who ranged in age from 24 to 31, set out their manifesto.

"We are old enough to remember New Zealand before two-thirds of our rivers became unsafe to swim in. But we also have a fair bit of time ahead of us and see that, for our generation and those that come after us, the repercussions of continuing to allow this degradation through weak laws are serious and scary."

Prickett felt her campaigning did not sit well with working for the council, and decided to move to Palmerston North to study and agitate fulltime.

National simply did not "get it" with its response on freshwater. She cites former Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy's view that water going out to sea was a waste, betraying a lack of basic knowledge about ecology.

During the election campaign, leader Bill English described the issue as complex, which Prickett feels gave it licence to take a do-nothing approach.

Nevertheless the campaigners made some progress, pushing National to set a goal of making 90 per cent of rivers swimmable by 2040.

"We now see swimmability as a value in its own right. And in the future we have to see rivers in terms of their own health."

Prickett is cautious about the new Government. It has made positive noises about winding down public investment in irrigation but meaningful change could take time.

Where some see a confusing political debate, she believes there is a significant degree of agreement among scientists. Politics muddies the waters.

"It all comes down to your values - whether you care about losing freshwater fish, or whether rivers are swimmable."

For the next few years Prickett will be operating at the coal face of freshwater management, assessing water quality on Landcorp's Molesworth Station. She's looking forward to working on New Zealand's largest farm, which runs mainly beef cattle.

She says she's humbled by the award but points to others who have worked for years and received flak for the stance they have taken.

"But I do feel proud at how the conversation has changed."

The awards are run by the Cawthron Foundation, with support provided by the Gawith-Deans family trust, Living Water, Tourism Holdings, Ministry for Environment and the Department of Conservation.