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Otago Daily Times
01-08-2025
- Climate
- Otago Daily Times
Water worries grow amid lax flood mitigation
South Dunedin is not the only area in the city with water worries. Mary Williams talks to residents in a North Dunedin suburb facing the threat of a catastrophic flood. In March 1929, a grid of short, flat North East Valley streets, squeezed between North Rd and the Lindsay Creek, flooded up to a metre deep and one resident picked a trout out their garden, according to The Otago Witness. For nearly 60 years, Roy and June Robertson have lived here. At the end of their Northumberland St garden, a concrete flood protection wall drops 4m to murky waters below. It is hard to imagine a flood topping the wall, and the Robertsons don't worry about it, but flooding is a serious risk here. A recent Otago Regional Council (ORC) report flags that the creek's Mt Cargill source can be a "mountain torrent". A flood with major consequences is "almost certain" and one with catastrophic consequences is "likely". The risk is higher than tolerated elsewhere in New Zealand, the report says, yet flood protection proposals have, for decades, languished in council files. Mr and Mrs Robertson are more concerned about river health. They saw a woman upending a bag of rubbish into the creek and Mrs Robertson chased her down the street. A water quality monitoring site a little further downstream, where the the creek loops under North Rd at the bottom of Craigleith St, has been recording levels of among the worst in the country. About 300m further downstream, the Dunedin City Council (DCC) has been adding to the pollutants — with ORC permission. DCC is allowed to discharge untreated wastewater, including the valley's sewage, into the Lindsay when the ageing pipe system overflows. "That's shocking — disgraceful," Mr Robertson says. It's one of six city locations where the council has been allowed to do it for eight years but increasing failure of council monitoring equipment has made it impossible to know how much pollution has been caused. One thing is certain here: the 1929 flood was deemed a once-in-a-hundred-years event. It's about time for a repeat and the water will not be clean. Serious flood risk There are many water calamities that have happened, and could happen, across the city, most obviously in South Dunedin where the regional and city councils are engaging the community about flood risk due to rising sea levels. Overflowing wastewater cannot be missed here; it travels in old pipes from the Kaikorai Valley then pours on to Surrey St sometimes — where an overflow pipe routed to the harbour fails to catch it all. A resident-led action group is fighting to stop the outrage. In Mosgiel, residents found they were living on an engineered spillway and banded together to fight for their property rights and for the Silver Stream to be dredged to give it more capacity. The dredging has been promised. However, in North East Valley, often called NEV, residents spoken to by the Otago Daily Times seemed variably worried and in the dark. Anna Samuel, who has three young children, says she moved into her Felix St home because she was told it would flood once in a hundred years and that didn't sound too bad, but after moving in she had water lapping at her steps. "I now worry every time we get a rain warning. I would love to know there is a plan." Jenny Wagner-Gorton, biodiversity co-ordinator at NEV's community organisation The Valley Project, said her group was organising an event about flood risk but would support council-led engagement that gave people "information needed ... everyone should have a basic expectation of a safe home". The information is serious. The recent ORC report says that, in a rain storm, the creek's steep, upper reaches can suffer bank erosion, causing debris in the water. As the stream travels, and becomes confined by buildings, the debris — including any from landslips on the true right of the stream — can cause blockages and then flooding. There is a pinch point, between Watts Rd and Felix St, where the old Palmers Quarry slopes to the creek and there is a capacity flow of about 30cum per second. The ORC estimates that this flow has a 79% probability of happening in a 10-year period and a 95% probability in a 20-year period. Once exceeded, the stream will overtop its left bank and, depending on volume, inundate the small valley floor from Felix St to Allen St, possibly within two hours of rain starting. The speed of a flood, combined with water depth and velocity, makes an emergency response plan challenging, the report says, creating "unsafe" conditions for people and rescue vehicles. Planning and replanning Work to prevent flooding in NEV has been limited and bank protection is controlled by various owners, including the DCC and private landowners. In the 1970s, there was a plan to build concrete walls on either side of the creek between Selwyn St and Allen St. The wall on the true left was built, including the section at the end of the Robertsons' garden, but the wall on the right was not. Decades passed. Then, between 2005 and 2011, the ORC developed a "concept design" for a $21.4m flood mitigation scheme for the Lindsay and the Leith. Various methods would be used, including raised banks and walls, and wider and deeper channels, and land was needed, which brings the story back to the Robertsons. They have kept letters, sent by the ORC from 2005, indicating that their garden could be required and previous flood mitigation plans would not protect them. Their land was valued and while other land was bought by ORC, the Robertsons did not sell. They say that living on a flood plain — previously an area of market gardens — means they can grow vegetables and they were loathe to relinquish land that delivered great garlic. By 2011, the Leith flood protection was under way but the Lindsay work deferred. Cost and community opinion were cited. In 2013, a cheaper proposal, deemed less effective, was tabled. Flood water would be held upstream in a storage area, to be built in Chingford Park. The plan was also rejected for funding reasons. Meanwhile, there has been patchy flooding and sandbag handouts, residents say, and the big one has got close. Since recording started in 1979, the stream reached its capacity in summer 1991, autumn 2006, and winter 2015. Roll on to 2025, and there is a new, stretched out, plan for flood mitigation. ORC's Infrastructure Strategy says options will be identified by 2027 with implementation of a $60m plan from 2028. Less than 6% of this — $3.5m — is allocated to be spent by 2035 with a promise to spend the rest after that and by 2054. That is half a century after ORC started proposing solutions to the Robertsons and not the only council water headache in NEV. Six overflow locations The DCC's overflows of untreated wastewater into the Lindsay happens at a spot near Dunedin North Intermediate School (DNI) and is one of six locations where Dunedin City Council holds ORC consents to do this; three into streams and three into the harbour. The other stream locations are along Kaikorai Stream: at Kaikorai Common, where locals love to stroll; and just above Kaikorai Valley College (KVC), known for its students' studies of the stream's limited ecology. The harbour locations are at the mouth of the Waters of Leith near the yacht club and at Sawyers Bay. The DCC has said it informs shellfish company Southern Clams when wastewater is being discharged "so harvesting can cease". The DCC also discharges overflowing untreated wastewater from the Portobello Rd pump station in South Dunedin. Excepting the Portobello Rd consent, the other five consents were issued for the first time in January 2017, variably expiring in the 2030s and 2040s, requiring DCC to record and report overflow data and requiring an overflow stakeholders' meeting at a remarkably infrequent rate; once every five years. An inaugural meeting, regarding the five consents, happened on November 16, 2021, only two months before DCC's deadline to hold it. It is a perplexing fact that all five consents require KVC to be a stakeholder. None mention DNI. Neither school attended the 2021 meeting and it is unclear if they were invited. KVC's science teacher Dr Simon McMillan said the college has been warned by the DCC about some overflow events but expressed surprise at being a stakeholder in overflow consents across the city. He thought the role was possibly "sleeping". DNI's principal Heidi Hayward said the consents and their requirements were news to her. Data difficulties The 2021 meeting's minutes reveal that the DCC explained the problem but gave little data. Overflows happen because rainwater infiltrates older wastewater pipes. The Kaikorai overflow aimed to "mitigate against wastewater flooding downstream". As Surrey St residents in South Dunedin can attest, that still happens four years on. The council also said it had been monitoring overflows since 2012 and overflows into the Lindsay Creek and Kaikorai Stream happened "more frequently" than at other locations which overflowed "around twice a year". No overflow frequency or volumes were provided. The council then flagged that there were "often" monitoring failures due to ageing data loggers. The ODT asked the DCC for more recent data about overflows. DCC's Three Waters group manager John McAndrew said the council couldn't answer by deadline. The ODT then asked the ORC, which handed over data for a two-year period, ending July 2024. The DCC had reported 52 overflows across the five consented locations, releasing about 40,000cum of wastewater. More than half, 30, were into Kaikorai Stream at the location near KVC and 13 went into the Lindsay. The worst overflows were at these locations, each more than 7000cum in a day. ORC general manager for environmental delivery Joanna Gilroy said any overflow "can pose human health risks due to the presence of bacteria, viruses and other pathogens" and life in the river could also be lost. The ODT circled back to the DCC, which then handed over a report listing 13 overflows in the year ending July 2024, releasing 3246cum of wastewater. However, it explained there were now massive data gaps — due to the "deteriorated" loggers. Data for overflows into the Lindsay Creek and at Kaikorai Common was lost or unreliable for most of the year and replacement loggers were planned. DCC's Mr McAndrew said there was also "extensive" pipe renewal happening in North East Valley and Kaikorai Valley as part of the nine-year plan to spend $180m on wastewater network renewals, which should reduce overflows. A DCC web page about overflows had been updated. The page — if you know to look for it — talks about overflowing wastewater being "highly diluted" by stormwater and the waterways, and released in largely "inaccessible" locations. It also links to a decade-old consultancy report that concludes, in desultory terms, that there is a "paucity of data" about overflow pollution but 'no doubt" that water suffers. Generally, the ecological value of Dunedin's waterways is "not particularly high". Otago Fish & Game communications officer Bruce Quirey said there are still trout — University of Otago surveys show about 70 — in the Lindsay Creek's upper reaches at Bethunes Gully. It is an important spawning area. Lower down, around Chingford Park, numbers are halved and, further down, where a man once found a trout in his garden, Mr Robertson says he doesn't see them. Mr Quirey says an improved habitat would mean more fish. It "shouldn't come as a surprise" that the further streams flow through the city, and the more manipulated they are, the less healthy they are.
Otago Daily Times
21-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Kaikorai Stream: A tale of two tips
In the second part of a two-part series about the polluted Kaikorai Stream, Mary Williams investigates its journey past two tips and finds a leachate pond and angry residents. Sandwiched between the polluted Kaikorai Stream and a sprawling, but largely unknown Dunedin tip there is a snake-shaped strip of land, 315m long and just 15m wide, the Dunedin council has categorised as an "esplanade". Dictionaries describe an esplanade as a public place for promenading. The word conjures up images of Victorians holding parasols and a modern-day example, featured in council-funded tourism campaigns, is the St Clair seafront with its bracing air, ocean views, a salt-water pool and cafes. The Burnside tip's esplanade has no path, there have been complaints about airborne dust and the murky stream sludges past. A "leachate pond" next to the esplanade is not for swimming — it stores liquid that has seeped out of the tip. The tip accepts contaminated waste. There are no cafes and it is advisable to wash your hands before opening your flask, but not in the stream. The leachate pond is permitted by the Otago Regional Council to overflow into the stream, up to three times a year. The Kaikorai Stream has to fight its way past two tips — the privately owned Burnside tip and the Green Island tip owned by Dunedin City Council (DCC). Both take rubbish and contaminants and neither is closing any day soon to protect the stream. The Burnside tip has taken rubbish for 35 years and is consented for another 13. The Green Island tip started dumping on Kaikorai estuary's tidal mud flats 71 years ago and has been reconsented for another 35. There is hope the Green Island tip won't need a a 100th birthday party. However, the plan to open a new civic tip at Smooth Hill, 21km south, won't happen until 2029 "at the earliest", according to Dunedin City Council chief executive Sandy Graham, and is not universally welcomed. University of Otago ecologist Gerry Closs says tips should never be near waterways. A tip in an estuary wetland is "always going to be problematic" and Smooth Hill has a river gully. He says that, in Australia, laws are tighter. Deep, abandoned mines are used. "I have always half-joked that Macraes gold mine would make a good tip." The Resource Management Act defines esplanades as land for public access and recreation, or land that protects water bodies, but it's hard to perceive the Burnside esplanade as either. Although there is no trail, the Outdoor Access Commission, Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa, confirmed it is legal to walk the esplanade. Walking it in an upstream direction, it rapidly becomes a steep bank — strewn with rubble, broken metal and rubbish and with no native planting — that leads up to the edge of the tip's yard. The yard is lined with the leachate pond, then rusty shipping containers, then old bits of machinery. The DCC says it has a policy of requiring landowners who edge the stream, and who want to subdivide, to give up a 20m-wide esplanade reserve "for conservation purposes" as a condition of any subdivision consent. It says it typically requires these reserves to be planted "as a buffer between adjacent land use and the stream". A document unearthed from the DCC archives shows that, when the Burnside esplanade was acquired by the council in 2010, the subdividing landowner tried to barter down its width and the council agreed to 15m. A report by council staff, written during the wrangle, said the stretch was "as important to the overall health of the stream and estuary as any other section" and a riparian strip was particularly important for biodiversity here "given the industrial nature of the surrounding land". Burnside tip owner Mick Ross, of demolition and excavation company Nash and Ross, says it is "very frustrating" the council has not planted the esplanade. The council says it has "no record" of making promises to plant and "no planting was required as part of the consent". There is another unrealised council goal: its future development strategy contains an ambition to open a Kaikorai walking trail alongside the stream from the top of Kaikorai Valley to the sea, but also says it has no funding and no timeframe. There are other, more tangible obstacles. The stream goes under roads and buildings and squeezes past multiple and unattractive industrial sites, which are not being subdivided. Just downstream of the Burnside tip, one company has made an effort. Fireplace manufacturer Escea has planted natives and installed a pleasant outdoor seating area next to the stream. It is an oasis but Escea chief executive Nigel Bamford is scratching his head about the council's plan to stitch together subdivided sections for a trail. "It could take a thousand years." His staff talk about their concerns for the stream. They sometimes see oil slicks and dead fish floating past . They are likely less aware of their neighbour's leachate pond and its permission to overflow goodness knows what. Mr Ross doesn't respond to a question about the frequency of overflows. The ORC says the pond overflowed into the stream during a rainstorm last October and the tip owners have complied with the condition of no more than three times a year. There are easier ways to view the Burnside tip than a risky walk on its esplanade. Residents of Scotland Tce, on the Green Island hillside to the south of the Southern Motorway, get a bird's-eye view across the road and the stream to the tip on the opposite flanks and how it has changed over time. In 2016, the DCC granted permission for it to carry on over a bigger area, and in 2018, the ORC granted consent for the tip to take contaminants. The leachate pond was designed to receive channelled stormwater running over the tip and leachate that seeps out of the tip and then discharge it into a DCC sewer. However, the tip's ORC "discharge permit" allows overflow into the stream in high-flow rain events, up to a maximum of three times a year. The expansion came as a shock to Scotland Tce residents, who were not notified. One says their young son loves looking at the diggers, but others mention dust, smoke, noise, risk to the stream, complaints they had lodged and their stress levels. The complainants didn't want to be named. "It's just ridiculous," one said. "I think it is disrespectful to nature," said another. "No wonder people's physical and mental health has taken a hit over the years." She thinks companies that make things that then get dumped should be blamed — "out of sight, out of mind doesn't do it." The residents have snapped photos of the tip showing dust, smoke and an array of objects including parts of buildings, sofas, a spa bath and even something that looks like a boat. Mr Ross says the tip is built on top of impermeable stone. It is on the site of an abandoned marl (mudstone) quarry, which supplied a cement factory that operated here between 1922 and 1988. Mr Ross doesn't mention a slope behind the Kaikorai Stream and the tip's truck yard, which residents say has risen up recently. Tip documents describe it as a buttress wall, built to retain waste dumped into the hillside behind it. Residents' photos show waste strewn across the wall, then buried into it. The tip's consents require it to monitor and report how it is managing its risks and the ORC says it is auditing the tip, with results expected in June. Mr Ross deflects attention elsewhere. He describes the Kaikorai Stream as "massively contaminated and has been for a long time ... I am pretty sure the leachate coming out of our landfill is cleaner than that stream". He calls the council's tip, downstream at Green Island, a ticking timebomb with "high potential for leaching ... It will be a forever problem. They will never sort it out. The real problem is what went in there in the 1950s". The Green Island tip contained 4.8 million tonnes of waste by 2020 and was reconsented last month for another 35 years. Concerns about leaching keep bubbling up, while the council claims it is managing containment. The plan to shut the tip in four years is uncertain. It has just been reconsented by the ORC for another 35 years and the ORC's submission to the DCC draft long-term plan doesn't mention protecting water from risks posed by city tips. Fish & Game environmental officer Nigel Paragreen says the future could be different if the tip shuts, but the stream's heavy pollution — from wherever — means there will have to be a "genuine effort" at restoration. He gives an example from 2020, when liquid concrete, mixed by a council contractor, got into the stream and caused the death of five long-finned eels. "People want to walk around, fish and hunt in the estuary but if it were a nicer place, interest would explode. People want spaces to connect with the environment and there are precious few close to urban centres." One man, who lives about 10km north of the estuary, is already connected to his environment and the Kaikorai Stream. It springs from his land, high up in the Flagstaff hills. It is fitting that Alan MacLeod is a source custodian. He has spent a lifetime connected to water, from stream to sea. When he was a child, his intrepid family took him on sailing trips between New Zealand and the United Kingdom and, as an adult, he captained boats for conservation missions to remote islands. In the 1980s, he couldn't afford fence posts to protect the stream from stock, but that didn't stop him. He cut down ageing gum trees and split them with steel wedges. Today, one man's efforts mean the bush remains, he can drink the water and there are birds. He adds his voice to the calls for an end to the pollution downstream. "The water up here is soft, drinkable and I have looked after it all my life. But what happens to it lower down, goodness knows ... In this day and age it is just not good enough."
Otago Daily Times
21-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
A tale of two tips
In the second part of a two-part series about the polluted Kaikorai Stream, Mary Williams investigates its journey past two tips and finds a leachate pond and angry residents. Sandwiched between the polluted Kaikorai Stream and a sprawling, but largely unknown Dunedin tip there is a snake-shaped strip of land, 315m long and just 15m wide, the Dunedin council has categorised as an "esplanade". Dictionaries describe an esplanade as a public place for promenading. The word conjures up images of Victorians holding parasols and a modern-day example, featured in council-funded tourism campaigns, is the St Clair seafront with its bracing air, ocean views, a salt-water pool and cafes. The Burnside tip's esplanade has no path, there have been complaints about airborne dust and the murky stream sludges past. A "leachate pond" next to the esplanade is not for swimming — it stores liquid that has seeped out of the tip. The tip accepts contaminated waste. There are no cafes and it is advisable to wash your hands before opening your flask, but not in the stream. The leachate pond is permitted by the Otago Regional Council to overflow into the stream, up to three times a year. The Kaikorai Stream has to fight its way past two tips — the privately owned Burnside tip and the Green Island tip owned by Dunedin City Council (DCC). Both take rubbish and contaminants and neither is closing any day soon to protect the stream. The Burnside tip has taken rubbish for 35 years and is consented for another 13. The Green Island tip started dumping on Kaikorai estuary's tidal mud flats 71 years ago and has been reconsented for another 35. There is hope the Green Island tip won't need a a 100th birthday party. However, the plan to open a new civic tip at Smooth Hill, 21km south, won't happen until 2029 "at the earliest", according to Dunedin City Council chief executive Sandy Graham, and is not universally welcomed. University of Otago ecologist Gerry Closs says tips should never be near waterways. A tip in an estuary wetland is "always going to be problematic" and Smooth Hill has a river gully. He says that, in Australia, laws are tighter. Deep, abandoned mines are used. "I have always half-joked that Macraes gold mine would make a good tip." The Resource Management Act defines esplanades as land for public access and recreation, or land that protects water bodies, but it's hard to perceive the Burnside esplanade as either. Although there is no trail, the Outdoor Access Commission, Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa, confirmed it is legal to walk the esplanade. Walking it in an upstream direction, it rapidly becomes a steep bank — strewn with rubble, broken metal and rubbish and with no native planting — that leads up to the edge of the tip's yard. The yard is lined with the leachate pond, then rusty shipping containers, then old bits of machinery. The DCC says it has a policy of requiring landowners who edge the stream, and who want to subdivide, to give up a 20m-wide esplanade reserve "for conservation purposes" as a condition of any subdivision consent. It says it typically requires these reserves to be planted "as a buffer between adjacent land use and the stream". A document unearthed from the DCC archives shows that, when the Burnside esplanade was acquired by the council in 2010, the subdividing landowner tried to barter down its width and the council agreed to 15m. A report by council staff, written during the wrangle, said the stretch was "as important to the overall health of the stream and estuary as any other section" and a riparian strip was particularly important for biodiversity here "given the industrial nature of the surrounding land". Burnside tip owner Mick Ross, of demolition and excavation company Nash and Ross, says it is "very frustrating" the council has not planted the esplanade. The council says it has "no record" of making promises to plant and "no planting was required as part of the consent". There is another unrealised council goal: its future development strategy contains an ambition to open a Kaikorai walking trail alongside the stream from the top of Kaikorai Valley to the sea, but also says it has no funding and no timeframe. There are other, more tangible obstacles. The stream goes under roads and buildings and squeezes past multiple and unattractive industrial sites, which are not being subdivided. Just downstream of the Burnside tip, one company has made an effort. Fireplace manufacturer Escea has planted natives and installed a pleasant outdoor seating area next to the stream. It is an oasis but Escea chief executive Nigel Bamford is scratching his head about the council's plan to stitch together subdivided sections for a trail. "It could take a thousand years." His staff talk about their concerns for the stream. They sometimes see oil slicks and dead fish floating past . They are likely less aware of their neighbour's leachate pond and its permission to overflow goodness knows what. Mr Ross doesn't respond to a question about the frequency of overflows. The ORC says the pond overflowed into the stream during a rainstorm last October and the tip owners have complied with the condition of no more than three times a year. There are easier ways to view the Burnside tip than a risky walk on its esplanade. Residents of Scotland Tce, on the Green Island hillside to the south of the Southern Motorway, get a bird's-eye view across the road and the stream to the tip on the opposite flanks and how it has changed over time. In 2016, the DCC granted permission for it to carry on over a bigger area, and in 2018, the ORC granted consent for the tip to take contaminants. The leachate pond was designed to receive channelled stormwater running over the tip and leachate that seeps out of the tip and then discharge it into a DCC sewer. However, the tip's ORC "discharge permit" allows overflow into the stream in high-flow rain events, up to a maximum of three times a year. The expansion came as a shock to Scotland Tce residents, who were not notified. One says their young son loves looking at the diggers, but others mention dust, smoke, noise, risk to the stream, complaints they had lodged and their stress levels. The complainants didn't want to be named. "It's just ridiculous," one said. "I think it is disrespectful to nature," said another. "No wonder people's physical and mental health has taken a hit over the years." She thinks companies that make things that then get dumped should be blamed — "out of sight, out of mind doesn't do it." The residents have snapped photos of the tip showing dust, smoke and an array of objects including parts of buildings, sofas, a spa bath and even something that looks like a boat. Mr Ross says the tip is built on top of impermeable stone. It is on the site of an abandoned marl (mudstone) quarry, which supplied a cement factory that operated here between 1922 and 1988. Mr Ross doesn't mention a slope behind the Kaikorai Stream and the tip's truck yard, which residents say has risen up recently. Tip documents describe it as a buttress wall, built to retain waste dumped into the hillside behind it. Residents' photos show waste strewn across the wall, then buried into it. The tip's consents require it to monitor and report how it is managing its risks and the ORC says it is auditing the tip, with results expected in June. Mr Ross deflects attention elsewhere. He describes the Kaikorai Stream as "massively contaminated and has been for a long time ... I am pretty sure the leachate coming out of our landfill is cleaner than that stream". He calls the council's tip, downstream at Green Island, a ticking timebomb with "high potential for leaching ... It will be a forever problem. They will never sort it out. The real problem is what went in there in the 1950s". The Green Island tip contained 4.8 million tonnes of waste by 2020 and was reconsented last month for another 35 years. Concerns about leaching keep bubbling up, while the council claims it is managing containment. The plan to shut the tip in four years is uncertain. It has just been reconsented by the ORC for another 35 years and the ORC's submission to the DCC draft long-term plan doesn't mention protecting water from risks posed by city tips. Fish & Game environmental officer Nigel Paragreen says the future could be different if the tip shuts, but the stream's heavy pollution — from wherever — means there will have to be a "genuine effort" at restoration. He gives an example from 2020, when liquid concrete, mixed by a council contractor, got into the stream and caused the death of five long-finned eels. "People want to walk around, fish and hunt in the estuary but if it were a nicer place, interest would explode. People want spaces to connect with the environment and there are precious few close to urban centres." One man, who lives about 10km north of the estuary, is already connected to his environment and the Kaikorai Stream. It springs from his land, high up in the Flagstaff hills. It is fitting that Alan MacLeod is a source custodian. He has spent a lifetime connected to water, from stream to sea. When he was a child, his intrepid family took him on sailing trips between New Zealand and the United Kingdom and, as an adult, he captained boats for conservation missions to remote islands. In the 1980s, he couldn't afford fence posts to protect the stream from stock, but that didn't stop him. He cut down ageing gum trees and split them with steel wedges. Today, one man's efforts mean the bush remains, he can drink the water and there are birds. He adds his voice to the calls for an end to the pollution downstream. "The water up here is soft, drinkable and I have looked after it all my life. But what happens to it lower down, goodness knows ... In this day and age it is just not good enough."
Otago Daily Times
02-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Stream of toxicity
A Dunedin river sits at death's door, hidden from sight and needing rescue for more than a century. In a two-part series, Mary Williams walks the long-polluted stream from source to estuary and talks to people who care and care less. Poisoned repeatedly as it slugs its way through Dunedin's southern industrial zone, the Kaikorai Stream spews its gutful of garbage and toxins into a large estuary at Green Island and then the Pacific Ocean. "I wouldn't put my feet in it, let alone drink it," says Hendrik Koch, manager of the Shetland St community garden at the top of Kaikorai Valley. Water trickles past his boots, seemingly devoid of life. One time here, it was luminous green. In 1849, a city settler described the stream as the "purest water", but by 1907 the Otago Daily Times was describing it as a "continuous sewer" and city scandal. More than a century later, the water agency Lawa reports and other pollution readings in the worst category and likely degrading further. About 7km downstream, a factory worker says the largest thing that floated past their window was a car and the latest thing was a dead elver — a juvenile tuna/eel, one of New Zealand's precious and declining taonga species. In the estuary there is a sofa, should anyone care for a ringside view of the stream's other fallout. Birds stalk among rubber gloves and tyres, unlikely to find an easy feed. The stream's water quality is tested as terrible and insect counts are low. University of Otago freshwater ecologist Gerry Closs says it is tricky to finger-point polluters because there are so many potential sources. Water can be soiled from dumping, from 250 storm drains that pipe straight in and from surface runoff including toxic dust from roads. The stream's water may be murky, but it is clear it needs rescuing. Aroha/Love Kaikorai Valley Trust (AKV) has a vision of clean water to the ocean and does things such as stream cleanups and predator trapping. One volunteer, Charlotte Garchow, is just 12 years old. She has a message for any purposeful polluters who don't get in the waka, grab an oar and paddle like fury to restore the stream's life for fish, birds and everyone. "I think it would be quite, like, annoying and maybe a bit sad. "They are maybe not helping the world and making it a worse place to be in, so I hope they listen." The journey When Tania Sharee Williams (Ngāpuhi) was a child, she used to swim in the stream and eat kura/crayfish from it. She is manager of Araiteuru Marae, next to the community gardens. "Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au", she says. I am the river, the river is me. The stream's Māori name, Kaikarae, is two words: kai/food and karae/seabird. For centuries, Kaikorai Valley was a Māori walking route, with food on the way because its valley and estuary teemed with fish and birds. Now, cars swing in to Kaikorai Valley Rd between the pillars of KFC and Subway and the stream is invisible from behind the wheel. On foot it can be found on the left, trapped between warehouses and factories, swapping to the right around Kaikorai Valley College, then descending to industrial yards, a tip at Burnside, and finally under the Southern Motorway to the council-owned Green Island tip at the estuary's edge. Its journey passes through private land parcels and is physically impassable when forced under roads, into concrete channels and even through buildings. Unsurprisingly, numbers of macroinvertebrates — mayflies and other critters that fish and birds rely on for food — are in the lowest category. The Dunedin City Council says that its draft 9-year plan includes measures to improve the city's streams, but adds that streams that discharge into the harbour are being prioritised above the Kaikorai catchment. Hanging on There are two, short stretches where the public can, in theory, meet the stream. Kaikorai Common is between Shetland St and Taieri Rd and there is a stream-side path between Donald St and Townleys Rd, but it is currently fenced off and the council couldn't say when it would reopen. Motor mechanic Willie Gardner and his dog had slipped behind the fence anyway. "It's where people come to relax," he says. Another green patch, at Kaikorai Valley College, gives learning opportunities. Head of science and longtime stream advocate Dr Simon McMillan, an AKV trustee, points to water edged by trees but no other evidence of nature. Water testing has revealed e-DNA evidence that the chronically threatened longfin eel has been here. "It goes to show that some parts of the stream are holding on to their life, but if I go in and had a look around for some invertebrates, it would be a different story. An eel is hardier than your average mayfly." He suspects any surviving eels, which live for years but eventually must try to migrate to the ocean to breed, may be constrained to patches of the stream due to weirs and other barriers. Catchment The stream has a catchment of more than 40sq km, reaching well beyond the businesses lining Kaikorai Valley Rd. Water flows from tributaries, including one from the flanks of Flagstaff and Wakari into Fraser's Creek and another from around the Balmacewen Golf Course. It travels through businesses, construction sites, roads and about 20,000 homes. There is likely uninformed polluting by people washing cars and paint brushes into drains. Detergents, paint, oil, dyes, solvents, bleach, concrete, fertilisers, battery acid, general rubbish and more are mentioned in an Otago Regional Council campaign called "only drain rain". The ORC can, with the other hand, grant corporates consents that include permission to drain pollutants in certain circumstances. Mr Koch, the community garden manager, says streams can become "informal tips" and corporate permissions to pollute are "remarkable". Asphalt Slightly before Kaikorai Valley Rd meets the Southern Motorway there is a suburb called Burnside. It is a fiery name for a hard yard where diggers and machinery move and sift steaming asphalt and concrete and the abandoned meat works looms in the background. The stream loops through it all. Doug Hall, owner of excavation and demolition operator Hall Bros Transport and former councillor, has owned the site since 2021. A sign advises visitors to report, but after finding no office to report to, and no evidence of stream-side planting, I rang Mr Hall. He said the yard was previously a "bomb site" covered in broom and gorse. When asked if he would plant natives around the stream's banks, he said he would, but it could take him a decade. He then revised his answer to "in the long term" and "when I get around to it". He hadn't heard of the community group AKV. When asked how he would respond if someone in the community asked him to plant trees around the stream, he replied: "They can go to hell. Unless they want to pay for it and do it." He complained about "do-gooders, who can please their bloody selves". In the stream, there was rubble and rubbish including a large wheel. Coincidentally, Hall Bros Transport's website is created by Turboweb, a design firm owned by AKV chairman Paul Southworth. Mr Southworth says AKV wants to help businesses understand the stream exists, needs saving and companies can help by taking steps to stop risk of pollution from their own businesses. "Water testing has been done to death. The stream slowly degrades as it goes down ... We are educators, collecting good people to do good stuff. It's what you do. "If I saw him [Doug Hall] out, I'd have a beer with him and I would try to turn him around." Mr Koch, the community garden manager, says broom and gorse are good for insects and birdlife. Industrial activities that operate with council consents are required to meet any environmental conditions and be audited. Neither ORC nor the DCC was able to forward any consents required by Mr Hall to operate his yard. The DCC said Mr Hall's screening yard was permitted within the industrial zone and the council had "no power to compel planting on private property", unless consenting a subdivision. The council forwarded a consent application granted in 2011 when Mr Hall didn't own the site. It allowed excavation rubble to be put on the site that had been dug up when rerouting State Highway 88 and building Forsyth Barr Stadium. The consent application said there was an "indication" that the site would then be planted for "visual mitigation and rehabilitation". Despite Mr Hall promising planting nearly a quarter of a century after it was expected, a DCC spokesperson said his plan was "positive". Glimmers of hope There's surely no life under the former meat works. The stream emerges from under it, in a concrete channel, at the Japanese Auto Wreckers yard. It's a desolate spot. "Nobody wants to see this," boss Ricky Cockburn agrees. He hadn't heard of AKV, but said that he would give something, either labour or money, if asked to help. Just downstream, arborist firm Treeman has started native planting along 100m of stream bank and is feeding a dozen longfin eels. It is a glimmer of hope or pointless effort. Arborist Nick Boereboom says a sheen of diesel has run across the whole stream, killing vegetation. More recently, further upstream, someone else noticed an eel-catching net. Mr Boereboom describes nature as being "squeezed out ... Someone has to care about the stream, otherwise it just gets forgotten". He hasn't talked to Mr Hall, Mr Cockburn, nor the owners of the Burnside tip downstream. After passing the tip and ducking under the motorway, the stream reaches hundreds of ducks at Harraways Oats factory in Green Island, where there are oats but no duck-shooters. Fish & Game has tried moving them, but the ducks return because it is "just too tantalising", environmental officer Nigel Paragreen says. Possibility still Further down, where stream meets estuary, Mr Koch has led a 19-year community tree-planting effort and gives the ODT a tour of manatu (ribbonwood) and harakeke (flax), while picking his way through rubbish, much of it half-buried. Some rubbish is removed but it just keeps on coming downstream, along with oils, heavy metals and plastic particles, he says. Two hectares have been planted with 15,000 trees. It's an incredible effort, but less than 0.05% of the stream's catchment. "How many people think their paint containers needs a wash out down the storm drain? The water is probably more toxic than the sewers and it isn't that people are indifferent or don't care, they just don't know." Ms Williams, at the marae, celebrates efforts to save the stream and opportunities for people to learn more and take shared responsibility. Stories about our rivers, and how they are a source of our life, running from the mountains to the sea, foster connection between one another and nature and without these stories it is a "free-for-all and you don't have to be accountable". "The river asks for nothing in return and does its best to provide. There is only one hiccup in this picture, which is our disconnect from nature. When we give freely and unconditionally, as nature does, then everything and everyone can be better off. "Some people will say that is airy-fairy, but others will say that is a total possibility."
