Last week at the HB Regional Council, there were high-fives, back-slaps and congratulations all around as the stakeholders group formed to address the clean-up of the Taharua and Mohaka Rivers reported its progress to Councillors.

The group proudly announced that it was working on a plan that would bring the rivers up to decent standards … in fifteen years! Although perhaps even that’s too ambitious a schedule, given that one spokesman noted the group was “just getting to the sharp end of the stick.” “What will change actually entail?” he mused.

Mind you, this is a mess created by four dairy farms! Clearly not people to be rushed into anything.

Even more incredible, not a single Regional Councillor questioned this timetable. Not one. They were too busy congratulating the team, which has been working on this problem since late 2009. Baybuzz published photos and a video of the pollution back in August 2009.

Over a year and a half to come up with a plan — details yet to be decided — that will clean up the river in fifteen years! This makes the glacial pace of CHB Council’s bumbling inaction on dumping its sewage into the Tukituki look like warp speed.

Sorry, if this is evidence of the Regional Council taking water pollution seriously, it just won’t wash.

If the Regional Council can’t take care of four dairy farms and a local council obviously stuck in it own s**t, why should anyone buy the notion that they can guarantee the environmental viability of a giant water storage scheme in Central Hawke’s Bay?

There’s a question for their water harvesting “feasibility” study to tackle!

Tom Belford

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2 Comments

  1. Tom, even more eloquent & succent than ever, what would we do without you! Keep up all the excellent work, we are truly lucky that you missed out (just) on the HBRC elections, better with you outside the tent than in it, I feel!!

    Cheers, Xan

  2. They will never clean up the Taharua and the Mohaka, unless they get the cows off the land,then it will take fifteen years to clean itself up,and I cannot see them doing that,it is illegal to pollute the Mohaka with a conservation order on it,just prosercute them off the face of the earth.I along with a few others spent a long time getting that conservation order on the Mohaka

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