Well well .This week cleared up the confusion over Bert Judd from my previous post, Land Fills .Both Mr Judd and Mr and Mrs Patton were at the meeting and while Mr Judd was smiling and quite rightly so Mrs Patton was not. Both partys represent the Waitatere Enviromental Care Association. The Manawatu River being their concern at the Moment And believe it or not it is is not farming they are going crook about. No they were back before council getting stuck into Palmerston North City Council again.
Mrs Patton spoke on behalf , complaining about PNCC,s Waste Water plant and that it is only being used to strip Phospherous at times of low flows, stating that 100,000,s tonnes of phosphate is dumped into the Manawatu River as a result.
E. coli levels soar when ever it rains because the PNCC,s consent is set for for dry weather meaning the plant operates to that consented level yet in the wet weather levels exceed by up to 250% and she stated most often exceeds the normal average daily discharge limit by up to 500%.
She got stuck in to council about PNCC,s effluent discharge, citing NZ Parmaceuticals chromium discharge to the cities waste water plant, a particularly nasty trade waste, causing serious non compliance issues,. Ken Thurston came in for more stick , it appears he and and others are “piggy backing” on a consent , (PNCC) all with the encouragement of Horizons Regional Council ,causing serious compliance issues. Overloading the system .
Other matters Mrs Patton bought to councils attention was PNCC,s storm water discharges . No treatment of, and all that pollution going straight into tributaries of the Manawatu River.It appears the Manawatu Catchment Water Quality Regional Plan allows this.
Council Had a brief discussion about this and a figure to mitigate this of $10 million was offered.
All in all , poor old PNCC rate payers, you naughty people, polluting the river for all these yrs and worse still blaming some one else. Farmers. I was quick to point out that it was too late to continue demanding this level of enviromental degradation as they had demanded such a high level of enviromental mitigation on the Agricultural industry that they them selves had become caught by the net, I do not know how rate payers are going to fund this , and I think back to Chritchurch City. What did they spend, $83 million?
What will this mean for Horizons dream of a Green Naverna on the plains, when Rate payers cannot afford the bill.
Well I am felling pleased with my self having done another good job of raising awareness of the hypocracy and the deliberate creation of science in the negative sence.(my view) I noted that the Media were present for this item and I wonder if their political masters let them publish this presentation.
Well here we are back again on the 20th July at the Regional Council meeting and Mr Judd is back for another go , same subject, but stating that from 1999 toxic sludge was transferred to the Paihaitua solid waste land fill and allowed to leach into a tributary of the Manawatu river up stream from Fontera,s processing plant.
Mr Murfitt stated that this sight has since stopped being used and is capped?
These people are really wound up about this and nobody appears to be taking them seriously.
On another subject and right out side my front gate a succesful joint project with Horizons Dept of Conservation and local land owners to improve Biodiversity values in the districts of Retaruke and the Ruatiti. this project covers 180,000 hec of both consevation and private land. The project aims to lift the brown Kiwi population by 10% every 3 yrs, and the Blue Duck to 50 breeding pairs and improve wild life generally.This has been so succesful for the Blue Duck Pop ,lifting breeding pairs to 65 in 2 yrs that the project won a prestigous prize at the IPANZ excellence awards for public service collaboration in Wellington.
Today we had a report on the Manawatu River Leaders Forum-Accord.
The Issues presented, included this statement.
How ever we acknowledge that the community has concerns and has identified that the river is in a poor state. It has been described as dirty, lacking life and culturaly compromised.
Well Mr Judd and Mrs Paton would agree, but perhapes would disagree who is responsible. I have a bad feeling about this forum and the industry leaders asked to represent their various sectors. I found the Vision Statement emotive, and another councillor expressed concern as to the ability of the Forum to achieve their objectives in a short time frame.
On another item in the same agenda we had a item , Incentivising and Supporting Regulatory Activity.
What is hoped, is that incentivised behaviour will go along way towards achieving land and water objectives held in our current suite of plans, and across the community.
It is hoped that by bringing in incentified behaviour buy in from both concent holders and the broader community who are properly supported in their proactive behaviour, will take significant steps in management of the impacts on the enviroment.
This item is a must read by consent holders.
I am concerned that too many consent holders are being done for non compliance for silly little things which are not really non compliance ,such as effluent irrigators breaking down and allowing pooling to occur, or consented irrigated platforms for effluent allowing pooling, spray irrigation pipes fracturing, effluent ponds over flowing in extreme rain fall events etc Well if you are up with the play help is at hand in the form of sec 324/5 RMA. Apply your self to the Enviroment Court to have the non compliance order reviewed. You will be surprised at the out come.
Got a couple of neat little books from the Ministry for the Enviroment titled ,Resolving Resource Management Act Concerns , and Your Guide to the Enviroment Court. A must read and YOU need to get them.
Lets face it . Agricultural Non Compliance at 14% is too high, needs to come down and this is one way of doing that.
Wake up people I am concerned where all the above is going, for if the outcomes desired are not achieved by the industry taking ownership through incentives then look out.
MAF,s Forestry Agistment Scheme,AGS, is being phased out, over the next 2yrs.
The air monituring site at Taumarunui exceeded the winter time PM10 allowances this month , too many fires?,
And a new coal mine for Ohura?