Andrew Dickens: Are we sticking by clean green NZ?

On Friday I interviewed a representative of oyster farmers in the Mahurangi area who were outraged at a wastewater dump by Watercare that had poisoned their oysters. 

They have to close for 28 days. One farmer has to dump 80,000 oysters. That’s not good for business or their cashflow. 

As the interview went on I found out that this is not an isolated incident.  It’s already happened 39 times before this year.  And even worse Watercare has the right to do a dump like this 200 times every year. 

I was flabbergasted. That seems like an awful lot of dumping.

Then in the weekend I got a call from a local MP.  She told me Watercare basically wrote their own consent.  

They needed to involve public consultation yet all they did was drop some leaflets at the Warkworth library. 

She's raised the issue with the mayor, the man who wants to make Auckland a global city, and Mr Fix it doesn't seem at all interested in fixing it.

And now they dump the regions wastewater into the Mahurangi River and they’re allowed to do that 200 times a year. 

It’s killing the river. It’s destroying the oyster business. It’s decimated commercial fishing in the area. 

It’s a symptom of intensification in the area. It’s a symptom of the infrastructure being unable to cope with the new demand. 

And it’s a symptom of the Council not having enough money to fix the problem and no desire to help the affected businesses and to rescue a wrecked river. 

Honestly, I’d rather swim in the Thames or the Seine than swim in the Mahurangi in rural North Auckland. 

The issue has been swept under the carpet by Watercare and the authorities and it’s frankly just not good enough. Day by day clean green New Zealand is becoming a myth and a lie we like to tell. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.