Tag: Manukau Harbour

Councillor Krum Supports Good Health for the Manukau Harbour, Or Does She?

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Councillor can not reconcile owing to East West Link

 

I saw this yesterday from Councillor Denise Krum on her support of improving the health for the Manukau Harbour – the often forgotten harbour in Auckland:

Krum supports move to improve Harbour health

Councillor Denise Krum is delighted that Watercare have stepped up and will be working collaboratively with Auckland Council to improve the Manukau Harbour’s health. Krum has been a long-time supporter of a programme such as this, and back in May 2015, she worked to have funding included in the 10-year budget.

The councillor for Maungakiekie-Tamaki says, ‘For too long the Manukau has been seen as the poor cousin to the Waitemata. There’s a lot we don’t know so Watercare’s funding for a hydrodynamic model will be an essential tool to help us to better manage the Harbour’s health as well as recognising the Manukau’s environmental and ecological significance to Auckland’. Krum will be following the developments closely along with the Manukau Harbour Forum who advocate for sustainable management of the Manukau Harbour and it’s foreshore.

Krum’s resolution at the Governing Body sought to not only fund, but to direct an integrated programme of work for the whole-of-council . Krum says “I believe this modelling will bring all parties together around an agreed knowledge foundation. It’s just what we need!”

—ends—

 

I struggle to see how Councillor Krum can be in support of improving the health of the Manukau Harbour when she is rather too silent on NZTA’s latest mission to trash the Manukau Harbour by building a motorway along the northern foreshore of the Mangere Inlet (an extension of the Manukau Harbour).

The current option that was originally $200m and now an eye-watering $1.85 billion (and they worry about the City Rail Link blowing its budget) can be seen below:

Option F
Option F

Apparently this new highway is meant to help freight move across the Onehunga-Southdown industrial complex between State Highway 1’s and 20. Except it misses the core of the industrial complex entirely while severing Onehunga from the foreshore by a sea of asphalt. What is worse is that Councillor Cashmore and I predict that heavy industry will not exist in the complex within the next 30 years (it will be replaced by residential and commercial owing to increased pressure of land use and prices) negating the need for a $1.85b truck way.

 

That said an East West Link is needed to cater for both the current industrial use and the future residential/commercial use of the area. Hence why I support Option B:

Option B This Should Be the East West Connections
Option B
This Should Be the East West Connections

 

Option B upgrades and optimises existing routes without touching the Manukau Harbour and Mangere Inlet. I believe Option B had the second highest Benefit to Cost Ratio (option A was the highest) while Option F had the lowest BCR (this Government seems to love going for the lowest BCR projects possible). Most of all Option B goes right through the core of the industrial complex while creating new connections to the Southern Motorway (which are currently missing) to serve the complex now and future residential/commercial land uses in the future. Simply put Option B gives the best connectivity for an East West Link.

 

So if Councillor Krum supports the health of the Manukau Harbour she would be saying very loudly even as a member of the National Party NO to Option F trashing the Manukau Harbour. Krum would be the flag bearer for Option B if she is serious about improving the health of the Manukau Harbour while improving connectivity in her Ward.

 

What will it be Councillor Denise Krum!

 

Waste Water Furore

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Legit Concern

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NIMBYism Striking Back

 

I noticed this cropped up in the Manukau Courier this morning via the Stuff Website:

‘Don’t dump it here’

Plans to release much of Auckland‘s wastewater into the Manukau Harbour have met a storm of opposition from waterfront residents.

Watercare has received 468 submissions from Mangere Bridge people and groups ahead of public hearings on its “central interceptor” project.

 

The feedback makes up the bulk of the 752 submissions on the project’s resource consent applications.

 

The interceptor, a 13km underground tunnel, will take up to two million cubic metres of sewage and stormwater to the Mangere treatment plant every year.

 

It will also include 6km of linking sewers and create a long-term replacement for an ageing 7km tunnel section – the Manukau Siphon – near the plant.

 

The $800 million proposal aims to improve the water quality of the Waitemata Harbour and reduce or eliminate 122 flooding spots, mostly in Avondale, Western Springs and Mt Albert.

 

But Mangere Bridge residents say those improvements will come at a cost to the environment.

 

Many of their submissions were completed on forms distributed throughout the community by the Mangere Bridge Residents and Ratepayers Association.

The form says the proposal could have dire effects for the water quality of the harbour and birds roosting in the area.

“It is not good ecological practice to transfer large amounts of water from its natural catchments to a shallow enclosed harbour with finite capacity to receive it,” the form says.

 

Te Akitai Waiohua Waka Taua Trust, which is associated with Pukaki Marae, has also lodged numerous submissions against the proposal.

 

The trust says there has been insufficient consultation with tangata whenua regarding stormwater discharge, air discharge, earthworks and coastal structures.

 

But Watercare chief executive Mark Ford says his organisation has a “strong record” of community consultation on major projects such as this one.

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I’ll take the word of Mark Ford over the Trust and Resident’s Ratepayer’s Association on reflection of consultation “issues” with Maori Trusts, and Resident and Ratepayers Associations pigeon holing debates/feedback with Pro-Forma forms as seen in the Unitary Plan debate.

But my question to the objectors is: Where is all the waste going to go for treatment?

  • We have an extra million people and subsequent urban development to support it on its way.
  • Our waste water infrastructure needs upgrading including expanding the Mangere Waste Water Plant.
  • There will be later on a second treatment plant in Drury with an outfall again in the Manukau Harbour to deal with waste water in the Southern Rural Urban Boundary area.
  • We have to stop the overflow of the sewerage pipes in the isthmus area spilling untreated sewerage into harbours.
  • Some waste water is being diverted to the North Shore plant for treatment.
  • And the Mangere Plant is state of the art with its Bio Reactors that are extremely efficient in treating our waste water which will be expanded

The simple answer is the waste-water is best suited to Mangere at this point in time along with other current and proposal plants. There is simply no where else to dump treated waste-water from the advanced plant that will have minimal effects on the actual physical environment.

From the article again

The central interceptor proposal reflects international best practice and will save Auckland more than $500m going forward, Mr Ford says.

 

Major upgrades are also being planned for the Mangere treatment plant to address Auckland’s wastewater needs.

 

“These will ensure continued protection of the Manukau Harbour and enable the Mangere wastewater treatment plant to continue to operate within its current discharge loads into the future.”

 

Watercare also intends to divert the wastewater flows of about 75,000 existing households from Mangere to a plant in Rosedale by constructing another tunnel from west Auckland to the North Shore.

—ends—

 

Unless you want the open oxidation ponds and sludge lagoon again as a method of treating our crap I’d suggest you let Watercare carry on unimpeded.