Mr Rupene of Tuahiwi, says he doesn't know what the slimy, green muck thickly coating the delicacy, his gear and his clothes is, but he is concerned about the welfare of all those eating whitebait caught near the mouth of the river.
He, his brothers and friends have camped every year at the Fenton Reserve at the mouth of the Ashley River during whitebait season.
“My whanau have been fishing here for generations,” he says.
But he is shocked at the polluted state of the river.
In the past fortnight he says it has got so bad he has posted several photos on his Facebook page about it, and received a large number of responses from people fishing for whitebait up and down the river, agreeing something is wrong with the river water quality.
He has also laid a complaint with Environment Canterbury.
‘‘For the past couple of weeks there has been exceptionally high amounts of what I think is possibly animal faecal matter flowing down the river.
‘‘My nets and clothes are covered in it, it gets on our clothes when we brush up against our nets, it stains, and we have to wash the clothes with disinfectant,’’ he says. ‘‘If it’s happening at the mouth, then what’s it like further up the river, where people swim and play.’’
It’s the third year it has happened and each day he says they have to wash their catches in fresh water four times to be safe. He then washes his clothes to sterilise them.
Mr Rupene says there are a lot of fish there, whitebait, smelt, cockabullies and others, and it is a very important resource for trout and herring.
He says the river has been great otherwise, as the season was delayed because of the high July/August rainfalls dirtied the water.
Environment Canterbury North Canterbury zone delivery leader Marco Cataloni says two staff visited the Ashley River mouth last Friday to conduct E. coli testing.
‘‘The staff were there to seek confirmation of E. coli in the river and to indicate if there was a discharge point somewhere up stream of the mouth of the river,’’ he says.
The latest reports have the water clear, but more testing needed to be done.
‘‘It is a priority to check the water condition of the Ashley River because, like the complainant, we are concerned for all river users.
‘‘We have to investigate to see if we can locate and identify what’s in the water, and where its source is,’’ he says.
Mr Rupene confirmed that the officers had visited the site.
‘‘It was great to see them there, they took samples of the water at a number of sites and then took scrapings off our nets and clothes. Now we all have to wait to see what the results come back as,” Mr Rupene said.
E. coli can come from avian, bovine or human contamination.
The muck in the river could also possibly be a sediment bloom stirred up by the large flocks of birds nesting around the river which has happened in other rivers.
Mr Cataloni says depending on the sample results, which they won’t know until they come back from an approved laboratory later, then they will take the next steps in the investigation. Until then they all have to wait.
ECan monitor all the farms along the river annually. Mr Cataloni says they must investigate where the reported contamination might be coming from if the testing comes back positive.
‘‘We have a spectrum of enforcement tools on hand and we investigate it all on a case by case basis looking at the circumstances and the mitigation of each case.
‘‘At present we just don’t know, that’s why we’re out testing.’’
