We have many wonderful assets and advantages to nurture, and ensuring our environment is as clean, healthy and attractive as it can be for our children and grandchildren must be top, or near the top, of the national priority list.
But there are many hurdles in front of us when it comes to achieving the dream of making things better, or of even trying to halt the steady decline and abuse of our natural environments.
New Zealand and its myriad wonders are still looked upon with awe by millions living in more polluted, congested countries.
Yet we know that what those people respect us for here is under threat, that the already loudly creaking clean, green image is an eroding veneer.
In New Zealand we are threatened by the events which would still happen regardless of our existence, such as major earthquakes and other cataclysmic and erosional changes to the land itself, as well as flooding, storms, El Ninos and La Ninas to name a few.
But we are also jeopardised by natural phenomena which have become worse as a result of our mismanagement of the environment and most notably our increasing greenhouse gas emissions, including those above, especially floods and severe weather, erosion and sea-level rise.
Then there are also the purely human-made environmental stressors, such as the accelerating degradation and contamination of waterways and freshwater supplies, the polluted and overworked soils, the poor winter air quality, and the toxic waste dumped around the countryside and now leaching into the ground.
Regional councils have the job, on our behalf, of safeguarding the teetering environment through monitoring and compliance with strict discharge rules. This week we found out just how well our southern city and district councils have been doing when it comes to managing their populations’ sewage.
The report snapshot highlights that all five Otago councils have had at least one significant compliance breach when it comes to operating their sewage plants within the rules in the past year.
The Dunedin City Council has been the best performing of the five councils. Of its 13 wastewater discharge consents, there had only been one significant breach of compliance, while six consents were fully complied with.
None of the Waitaki District Council’s eight consents were fully compliant, with four moderately and two significantly non-compliant. Queenstown-Lakes District had two fully compliant consents with three significantly breaching compliance, while the Central Otago District Council was fully compliant in meeting two consents but significantly non-compliant with another two.
However, a most shocking state of affairs has been spotlighted in the Clutha District. Out of the council’s 18 discharge consents, only one was judged as fully compliant, while a staggering half of consents have been breached significantly. The council also has eight current abatement notices, while four infringement notices were issued between January last year and March this year.
The Clutha Mayor, Bryan Cadogan, admits the situation is not ideal but says work is under way to improve compliance, with three fewer plants now non-compliant than in 2021.
The council has also ended its contract with Citycare, which on Thursday was found guilty on six charges relating to contaminant discharges from treatment plants at Stirling, Kaka Point, Owaka, Lawrence and Tapanui in late 2019, which resulted in a $500,000 fine for the Clutha council.
The state of Clutha’s wastewater operations leaves a great deal to be desired. The report suggested the breaches might not have caused immediate damage, but the threat of that has to be many times higher when discharge consents are ridden over roughshod.
Clutha, and Otago, do not want a reputation as the dirtiest corners of New Zealand.
