SEWAGE will soon be used to help grow trees!
June 8, 2009
Novel solution to environmental problem……
Read Article in Dominion Post 8 June 09
Sewage that now pollutes the Tukituki River will soon be used to help grow new forests.
An $8 million-plus scheme will mean that from 2011 there should be no more effluent flowing into the scenic river from oxidation ponds at Waipukurau and Waipawa in Central Hawke’s Bay.
Instead it will be piped to forests to be developed by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.
Regional council chief executive Andrew Newman said the oxidation ponds caused about half of the phosphorus pollution that was getting into the river, which is popular with fishermen, swimmers and kayakers. “Phosphorus is what causes the algal growth.”
Environmental groups have complained that the river has become smelly and slimy at times, especially during low-flow periods in summer.
The council will run the forests which will probably be planted in eucalypts as a commercial investment, expecting to earn cash from carbon credits as well as timber.
It will spend more than $2m to buy the land and establish the forests on land near the two towns.
“We hope to start planting trees this winter and to start irrigating them in the summer of 2010-11,” Mr Newman said.
A resource consent to discharge effluent to land will be processed in the coming months.
Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Trish Giddens said she was pleased with this solution, which would be $2m cheaper than the $8m treatment plant her council had planned. “That’s a significant saving for a small council, though it will still cost us $6m.”
As well as building pipelines, her council will enlarge the oxidation ponds to cope with growing demand.
Hawke’s Bay Environmental Water Group spokesman Colin Crombie welcomed the announcement. “We applaud it hugely,” he said.
Tamatea Taiwhenua chairman John Nepe-Apatu said Maori had been concerned for some time about sewage discharges into the river, so were very pleased that they would soon be stopped.
However, the Taiwhenua still had worries about similar pollution problems in some Tukituki tributaries, especially the Tukipo and the Maharakeke streams.
These waterways were particularly vulnerable to pollution from the Takapau township and farming and industries in the district, Mr Nepe-Apatu said.
