Guy Armstrong of the Wairau Estuary Protection Society questions pledges on water quality
Phil Goff is pushing back at central government plans to seize his water management from his council.
Take a moment to conjure up a vision of summer and Auckland – beaches, swimming, kids splashing in the shallows, sounds of warmth and enjoyment.
Phil Goff puts that image into words – “Heading to the beach to enjoy the summer as part of our birth right as Aucklanders.” He wrote this over three years ago, in “Beach pollution is not acceptable – and this is my plan to fix the problem.”
Before it could be published, News broke that faecal contamination had closed Takapuna Beach – the stinky climax of decades of broken pipes and misconnections.
Phil Goff or his advisors clearly didn’t know that council under-investment in sewerage would bubble to the surface just then. Should they have known?
On the other side of the Harbour Bridge, streams drain sewerage into Hobson Bay and council warns, “If you touch the water in the affected streams it is strongly recommended that you wash or sanitise your hands and anything that has come into contact with the water straight away”.
The contamination only became apparent last year with residents badgering the council to test the water. But it has been this way for decades. Council said they did not know. Should they have known?
Go back 10 years – council replaced the aging sewer pipe across Hobson Bay. Technical papers stated it would “practically eliminate overflows from Watercare’s wastewater system in Hobson Bay”. Press releases stated it would “almost eliminate” sewage overflows into the bay. The project manager claimed: “There should be no overflow at all”. Were they correct?
Well, no, this is the same Hobson Bay mentioned above. Like the Wairau Estuary on the North Shore, it remains a permanent no-swim area, too consistently contaminated to be on Safeswim.
Council clearly didn’t know the new pipeline 10 years ago would make no meaningful difference to the sewage in Hobson Bay. Should they have known?
Last month, a headline touted “New pipeline to make Auckland’s polluted beaches a thing of the past.” Only those in the know would stand a chance of grasping that they were referring to the Central Interceptor, which will only stop sewage discharges from the Western isthmus.
Most readers will assume that the entire Auckland region – Eastern Bays, North Shore, East Coast Bays beaches, will be free of sewage contamination. Even Mayor Goff seems to think so, claiming that the Central Interceptor, “will stop 80 per cent of overflows”.
The same claim was made last year on Facebook by Deputy Mayor Bill Cashmore. Does anyone in council know that the Central Interceptor will only reduce the sewage contamination of inner harbour beaches from Herne Bay to Pt Chev? Should they? Should they admit that the Central Interceptor will make not a jot of difference to water quality on the eastern beaches or the North Shore?
And we all know of the ongoing drinking water crisis. Our water use is still restricted. Whatever council (and its council-controlled entity Watercare) knew, they didn’t act until we had a real crisis – with real impact on businesses and residents. Did council know this crisis was building years ago? Should they have known?
Auckland councils have overseen Auckland’s three waters for over a century. Last year, the mayor admitted “Auckland has a long history of underinvestment in sewerage and stormwater infrastructure that will take years to fix. The issues we are talking about go back over 100 years.”
The catch-up fix will cost billions of dollars. The government want to take water management away from council and vest it in a dedicated body with better oversight. Phil Goff is pushing back against this.
Council wants us to trust it to fix the current water crisis and continue managing our water.
Should we?