The Absolute Necessity for Aggregates
A new research paper co-authored by: Ames Hughes, Katherine Cowper-Heays, Erica Olesson, Rob Bell & Adolf Stroombergen warns that floods, seawater and “fatbergs” may increasingly spew sewage into homes, streets and waterways as the planet heats up.
Wastewater systems provide a critical service to society, and their vulnerability to the impacts of climate change places the health and sanitation of many communities at risk.
Because many towns and cities rely on old and often degraded pipes, they face a choice between expensive upgrades or providing poorly performing services in future.
During heavy storms, their pipes could overflow and wash sewage into rivers and the ocean. The raging waters and erosion could also worsen blockages and damage pipes and treatment plants.
This will overload the system, and that’s going to affect the water quality in streams, swimming and collecting kaimoana.
Many residents pay little attention to wastewater, until something goes wrong, and cities with ageing pipes, such as Auckland & Wellington, are already experiencing sewage spills regularly – exceeding council targets.
Infrastructure capable of dealing with the extremes will be expensive and the research paper suggests that we need to engage with iwi, hapu and communities [to ask] if a lower level of service is OK or do we have to spend a lot more money to bring it up to spec.
The research offers a national picture, showing each locality, their geography and the climate change impacts that they’re going to face which will all be different. That includes their treatment systems.”
The trouble being that none of this infrastructure will be able to be upgraded or even maintained, without an adequate supply of aggregates and under the current planning rules and legislation, it is almost impossible to guarantee a supply of aggregate.
If there are no allowances made in regional and district planning, for the provision of a supply of aggregates then there will be no realistic chance of achieving any of the goals for infrastructure development and maintenance.
Without a guaranteed supply of aggregates then society and its infrastructure will cease to exist in its current form. It is an absolute necessity of the developed environment in which we live.
No aggregates means no roading maintenance or development; no drainage materials; no concrete for manufacture of pipes for the drainage; no concrete for construction; no builders mix for the home handyman; in fact in a very short time if there is no aggregate supply then there is no economic activity at all.
In relation to the maintenance and development of infrastructure, the first and most important basic requirement is to have a guaranteed supply of aggregates.
In New Zealand we consume approximately eight tonnes of aggregates per head of population per year on an ongoing basis just to maintain society as we know it today. In times of reduced economic activity this figure can drop below four tonnes per head of population and in times of escalated activity the figure can rise to more than ten tonnes per head of population.
Usually the major supplies of aggregates are located in mainly rural land but the changing land uses of the areas surrounding the current quarry sites can result in an environment where quarrying is seen as an activity that must be removed from the proximity to those areas therefore causing it to stop and move further from those areas.
Yet aggregates can only be produced where nature has provided the natural rock resources and this dictates where quarries can be sited.
This move to shift quarries then has the effect of raising the costs of aggregates to the end users and has a flow on effect of reducing the amount of infrastructure maintenance or development that can be undertaken for the same amount of money, due to increased costs.
When you transport quarry products, you raise the price significantly with distance.
The heavy traffic also has a huge effect on the infrastructure requirements over and above the actual supply issues and on climate change issues such as the use of fossil fuels and the greenhouse gas effects from that.
A guaranteed supply of aggregates is, in my opinion, the first issue that needs to be addressed when setting the planning priorities for infrastructure development and maintenance.
The reasons behind my opinion are as follows:
I believe that a supply of aggregates is the most crucial underpinning support requirement for all infrastructure maintenance and development.
Without a supply of rock society as we know it today cannot exist. We will soon be back to living a subsistence style similar to that which existed before the stone age man used the first piece of rock as a tool.
Andy Loader
Co-Chairman P.L.U.G.