The Orange Lake
I see that Willy Jackson is now an expert on Lake Waikare and states that the Three Waters Reforms will stop the pollution of this lake as shown on his facebook page copied below:
Three Waters will work to stop this.
Too often, local councils are being asked to run water services beyond their capacity and ability. Too often, the threat of Havelock North in 2016, hangs over us with over 5000 becoming sick from polluted water.
This Government refuses to allow difficult issues to simply be kicked down the path, and we have decided the best way to protect water quality, stop water pollution and ensure wastewater can be safely disposed of, is for Government to step in and do it ourselves.
Water is too precious a resource to allow for privatisation to play a role, this Government will ensure Three Waters is cemented into public ownership so we have sovereignty of our water and so we can curtail international interests from taking and bottling our water!
Much is being made from the usual race-baiting politicians and Talkback hosts that Māori will have a say in Three Waters, but Māori won’t have veto powers or undue influence, that’s just scaremongering disinformation!
Māori having a say in the conservation and protection of water is merely acknowledging the reality that exists already!
There is nothing to fear about Māori having a say and nothing to fear about the State stepping in and formalizing the protection of our water assets on a planet that is getting warmer with less freshwater!
This is a strategic resource that we want to be protected by the State and not left to local councils who don’t have the money to fix the problems.
I’m sick of seeing Lake Waikare look like Fanta, if you are sick of seeing pollution, support Three Waters rather than let the Talkback hosts trick you into cheap racism.
I support Minister Nanaia Mahuta and so should you, she is doing a fabulous job.
This Government does the hard lifting while other Party’s pay lip service to change.
Willy makes a number of statements that are in fact untrue and actually, just what he is accusing others of: scaremongering disinformation!
He claims that:
Much is being made from the usual race-baiting politicians and Talkback hosts that Māori will have a say in Three Waters, but Māori won’t have veto powers or undue influence, that’s just scaremongering disinformation!
Well he has got somethings right in this claim as follows:
Race; Maori; having a say; veto power; undue influence; scaremongering disinformation; but the problem is that he has got them all in the wrong place.
The Facts are:
How all of the above is going to stop the pollution of Lake Waikare is yet unknown to all except Willy Jackson and he is yet to tell us just how Three Waters will do this. But he has taken the opportunity to promote the reforms and why wouldn’t he, when Maori are the only winners in this whole project.
If this government is so certain of the benefits to be had by the ratepayers of New Zealand, from this “Three Waters Reform”, then they should put it out to a binding referendum to prove that it is what the citizens of New Zealand want.
If they do not do so, given that both major opposition parties have stated categorically that they will repeal any legislation pushed through under this reform, for them to force this through parliament by share weight of numbers will in my opinion be very close to malfeasance of office.
In relation to Lake Waikare we have yet to understand what is causing the algal bloom that has turned the lake orange.
The journalist Andrea Vance from Stuff was happy to blame the dairy farmers around the lake for the pollution that has caused the algal bloom and yet there are a large number of sources of pollution that go into the lake. So let’s look at some facts instead of relying on emotive statements that may or may not be correct:
Fact: There have been dairy farms around the lake for many decades.
Fact: The dairy farmers surrounding the lake have carried out large amounts of riparian planting around the edges of the lake and its tributary waterways.
Fact: There are now 19 less dairy farms around the lake catchment than there was.
Fact: There are geothermal vents with discharges into the lake that contain many minerals including Mercury.
Fact: The lake levels have been artificially altered and the Lake No longer flushes itself naturally as it used to, many years ago before the levels were altered.
Fact: The timber treatment plant beside the lake has been discharging contaminants into the lake for many years.
Fact: The Te Kauwhata sewerage station treated effluent is discharged into the lake and this includes all of the heavy metals residue that comes with human waste.
Fact: The lake is heavily populated by Koi Carp which cause degradation of the water quality from their feeding methods and cause the sediment in the lake to be held almost in permanent suspension from their feeding methods.
In July, it emerged that for three years Waikato District Council allowed non-compliant wastewater, contaminated with phosphorus, nitrogen and E.coli, to be discharged into the lake.
The Waikato Regional Council classifies the lake as hypertrophic, the worst water quality on the scale, and “super saturated” with nitrogen and phosphorus.
“A lake which is hypertrophic has basically nutrients which are just about off the scale,” says Gerry Closs, a freshwater ecologist and head of Otago University’s Department of Zoology.
“If it goes really extreme, you start to see collapsing ecosystems simply because the biological activity becomes so extreme, it can no longer get enough oxygen into the water to sustain that biological activity.
“At that point, the system becomes unstable with weird algal blooms, bacterial blooms, and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of the time, the water can often be highly toxic, as things break down.
A large part of the problem with super saturation of Phosphorous is from the Koi Carp. They cause massive erosion of the lake edges and this transfer of soil into the lake waters releases large quantities of natural Phosphorous from that soil.
The worst detrimental effects on the lake seem to have occurred over the last twenty or so years and this roughly coincides with the spread of the Koi Carp throughout the lower Waikato waterways.
Yes the dairy farming does have an effect on the environment but in this catchment there has been a marked reduction in the number of dairy units (19 to be exact) so to blame the dairy farmers, as the sole cause of the water quality problems is neither fair nor right particularly in light of the explosion in the numbers of Koi Carp in the lake over the last few years.
If we are to make difference in the water quality of the lake then we need to start by putting together an eradication plan for the Koi Carp as a starting point.
In fact if Willy Jackson is truly that worried about the water quality in Lake Waikare why hasn’t he rushed to help the local Iwi “Te Rui o Waikato” which has been taking action to catch Koi Carp and start the eradication process?
Led by Tawera Nikau they have arranged a lease on a processing site organised fishing teams and set up a zero waste process for using the Koi Carp that the Iwi members manage to catch. 100% of the catch is used with nothing going to waste. The whole process from initial fishing operations through to processing and disposal of the processed catch is being undertaken by the Iwi which is providing jobs for their people as well as reducing the harm to the environment.
I am sure they would more than welcome any assistance he could offer to arrange a funding stream to allow them to keep on eliminating Koi Carp from the local waterways.
Andy Loader