WATERCARES' PLANS FOR TITIRANGI
Press release below from Titirangi Protection Group (TPG). If you care about this issue, the time for submissions is coming soon.
Media Release
Auckland, New Zealand, 13 July 2018
Goff's claim of ‘scrub and gorse’ is nonsense, say treatment plant protesters
Auckland’s endangered native bush will be destroyed by Watercare’s proposed Titirangi water treatment plant, two new reports reveal.
Seventy per cent of Watercare’s four-hectare treatment site has been described as "endangered forest ecosystem", seriously questioning Auckland Council's claims that the Titirangi forest is expendable.
Watercare originally tried to place its Water Treatment Plant (WTP) in Oratia but when that proposal was defeated by community protest Watercare was forced to shift its focus to Titirangi’s kauri regrowth forests.
"Mayor Phil Goff has described the site as 'mostly scrub and gorse', which is pure stuff and nonsense," says Belynda Groot from the Titirangi Protection Group, the community organisation trying to stop bulldozers moving into the kauri forest. "Two ecological impact reports pour cold water on the idea that nothing of value is going to be destroyed, and one of those reports is from Watercare itself.”
One of the environmental reports was commissioned by Watercare and conducted by Boffa Miskell, while an independent report was written by respected ecologist, Shona Myers. Both reports recognise the high ecological value of the Titirangi site.
According to the Boffa Miskell report: “Our vegetation assessment identifies that endangered or critically endangered forest ecosystem types cover more than 70% of the Project Site.”
The Myers report goes into further detail: “The site itself is representative of regenerating forest types including kauri, present in this part of the foothills. It contains threatened ecosystem types (regenerating kauri forest, broadleaved forest and kahikatea-swamp maire forest) and nationally and regionally threatened species. The site forms linkages and corridors for wildlife with adjoining regional parkland forest.”
The adjoining parkland mentioned by Myers is home to two of Auckland’s oldest kauri (Clarks and Bishop). The reports also reveal that the proposed WTP site forms the headwaters which flow in to the Waituna Stream and Little Muddy Creek, home to endangered native freshwater fish species such as īnanga and long-finned eel.
Belynda Groot, says: “In a recent interview Mayor Goff described the site as mostly scrub and gorse so we hope that in light of evidence from experts, he will reconsider his position. We know that Watercare has been giving politicians a customised tour of a part of the site with the least ecological value, so confusion is understandable.”
Groot says the Titirangi Protection Group understands the need for a new water treatment plant but questions whether Watercare can decimate significant stands of native bush and still claim to prioritise sustainability.
“They need to go back to the long list or come up with a more innovative solution that doesn’t require the destruction of native forest.”
Groot points out that Watercare’s plans for a Titirangi WTP might also fail on a business-case argument. “Watercare admits the Titirangi site is a lot smaller than ideal for the scope of the project.”
Groot says Auckland Council recently closed the Waitakere Ranges to help save kauri from the very serious threat posed by kauri dieback and implemented a targeted rate of $311m to tackle the problem.
“On one hand ratepayers are saving the Waitakere kauri, and on the other hand they want to chop them down. Clean water shouldn’t be at the cost of our precious native forests - there are other more viable and sustainable options.”
ENDS
For comment or interview please reply to this email or contact:
Belynda Groot - Titirangi Protection Group
021 0235 1166
belyndag10@gmail.com
Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?
Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱
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49.5% Yes
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48.6% No
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1.9% Other - I'll share below
Here's Thursday's thinker!
I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?
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Why make picking up reserved library books harder? What do you think? Challenge: Write the last stanza for the first poem attached below.
Once books are reserved in Auckland Libraries books, when they are available no longer go alphabetically by customer but instead go into a Holds pickup shelf number based presumably somehow on when each book needs to be picked up by.
I had two books reserved that arrived on two different days in the Blockhouse Bay Library and hence each book has a different shelf number. Hard to find unless you knew the shelf number in the notification email. Even if you knew the shelf number I found myself three books by the same author on the two shelf numbers.
More recently yesterday a book I reserved was on a different shelf number than was specified in my notification email (see image below).
Sadly it is clear from library staff that a numerical system for reserves is here to stay.
I suggest that so that all books for each person has the same shelf number, the shelf number becomes the last digit of a person's library card (0-9).
Within each shelf number a book is found under the day the reserve arrives in the library (01 to 31, hopefully the same date the email is sent).
Since a customer appears to have 10 days to pick up a book, ten days of the month would appear to be required at any time (for each digit 0-9).
Once there are 10 days used the next day's reserves could go back at the beginning of the shelf number after any remaining books not collected (hopefully none) are removed (along with the old day number and the new day number (01 to 31) inserted) after the last day available and future days' books remaining moved forward to make room.
Each day number (01-31) would appear once for each shelf number (0-9) before the first book on that day- perhaps cover an old withdrawn book with paper with each day number on the spine?
When a reserved book arrives in the library the last digit of the library card could be placed on a piece of paper in the book to be removed when it is put on the shelf, to be recycled the next day.
What do you think?
See the image below and page 3 below for a letter appearing in the Western Leader on 9 September:
www.neighbourly.co.nz...
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