Kayaking the Kaituna

by Russel Norman

April 15, 2011

The Kaituna is internationally famous for white-water rafting and kayaking. And having just gone down it, I can see why. A deep gorge with trees overhead, fast flowing, lots of rapids, and a really big waterfall – 7 metres apparently. I’d like to be able to tell you that I kayaked this amazing river by myself, and it is certainly true that I was at the front of the kayak, but it’s also true that at the back of the kayak was Kenny Mutton, who really knows what he’s doing in white-water.

 
The Kaituna is threatened by pollution and a dam for power.

The Kaituna is the outlet to the sea for Lake Rotoiti and Lake Rotorua. Rotoiti is in pretty good shape but Lake Rotorua is seriously polluted and has problems with algal blooms due to high nutrient levels. This is because the catchment of Lake Rotorua is nearly half in pasture, with only 40% in native and exotic forest (Rotoiti catchment is 80% forested).

At the Rotorua lakes symposium last week the CEO of the Bay of Plenty regional council, Bill Bayfield, said that there was around 730 tonnes of nitrogen going into Lake Rotorua each year and, if the condition of the lake was to improve, this would have to be cut to 435 tonnes of nitrogen per year. This will require a huge land use change and he made it clear that only regulation could lead to that change.

The polluted water coming out of Lake Rotorua passes down the Ohau channel before entering Lake Rotoiti. A diversion wall was completed in 2008 at a cost of $10m which directs the water from Lake Rotorua directly into the start of the Kaituna River rather than mixing into Lake Rotoiti. This means that the Kaituna isn’t much more polluted then it would be anyway but Rotoiti is much cleaner. This is a good thing but I can’t help but think I’d rather they added the $10m to a solution to the pollution in Lake Rotorua and then the diversion wall would be unnecessary.

I met my kayaking companions at the Okere Falls store. We got ready and then I got into a two person kayak with Kenny just below the gates that control the water coming in from Rotoiti. There were a few in our group plus a couple of commercial rafts were heading down ahead of us. We slid down the green carpet into the water and did a test roll – I realised that my job was mostly to be inert luggage with the occasional forward paddling.

It really is an extraordinary 50 minute trip. It is a deep gorge with trees overhead and a lot of exhilarating white-water. I was surprised by how far Kenny could lean the kayak over without rolling it and how well it manoeuvred given its size.

We zipped in and out of eddies, went upstream back into rushing water. The first waterfall was just above the old dam and power station that had been closed in the 1940s. We jumped over it and got washed over at the bottom. Pretty awesome, I can see why these white-water junkies get addicted.

The big waterfall further downstream happened so fast. We headed hard right bounced off the wall then straight down into a giant boiling washpool of whitewater, and then out. Easy peasy when you know what you’re doing. Apparently Kenny has taken 80 year olds down here. I did end up with a lot of water in my mouth but it tasted earthy and not unpleasant. At the base of the waterfall is a large pool surrounded on all sides by cliffs covered in moss and plants. Really stunning.

The nutrient load coming down the Ohau channel is around 300 tonnes of nitrogen and 20 tonnes of phosphorous per year, which is a lot, but by the time the Kaituna gets to the sea it is carrying over 1000 tonnes of nitrogen and 70 tonnes of phosphorous per year. So while Lake Rotorua is polluting the Kaituna, it is the activities in the catchment of the Kaituna itself that is adding more pollution, including the AFFCO meatworks. Interestingly the intensive activities aren’t just dairy but also kiwifruit, which could have an even higher nitrogen leaching rate per hectare per year than dairy, though this is currently being researched further.

After the big waterfall we cruised down a few more rapids, I felt like a pro, then we got to the final rapids before the pullout. Kenny mucked around a bit, putting the kayak into a hole and making it jump in the air like a motorcycle doing a wheelstand at the lights.

Afterwards we went downstream where the kids, big ones and little ones, jumped into the river from a cliff. This is how New Zealand should be for all kiwi kids.

The proposed dam wouldn’t destroy the section of the river we kayaked but it would flood the section below, and the section below that would lose most of its water, as the power company wants to take the water out of the river and put it through a canal for 2.5 kms to generate power. This would reduce habitat for our endangered freshwater fish and impede if not block the migration paths of eels and trout and take away a section of river for kayakers.

We have already dammed so many of our wild rivers. Even if we let these kinds of proposals go ahead we would eventually run out of rivers to dam and then we’d have exactly the same problem we have now – finding a more sustainable way to generate power. So why not figure that out now, while we still have some of our wild rivers left? We have enormous scope to reduce demand through energy efficiency and load shifting with smart grids, we have great opportunities to generate power through geothermal, wind and tidal and easy distributed power options with solar (hot water especially).

At the very end of the river is an estuary, the Maketu, which is dying because the water from the river has been diverted away from the estuary directly into the ocean via the Te Tumu cut. This was done to reduce flooding on farms build on the flood plain at the bottom of the river, which is a bit silly when it is a flood plain.

Afterwards I went back to the Orere Falls store and met up with Toby Curtis and Tom Walters from Te Arawa. Toby is Chair of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust and remembered that there was already agreement to put the river flow back through the Maketu Estuary. And when I checked, indeed the Kaituna Maketu Joint Hearings panel (representing EBoP, Western BoP District Council, Tauranga City Council, and Rotorua District Council) has recommended that the river be fully re-diverted back into the estuary. I wonder why that recommendation has not been acted on?

Tom spoke of the importance of retiring land from intensive agriculture to protect the lakes and that Te Arawa have done just that with some of their farm land. He said money was important but protecting the lakes for future generations was more important. It is an enlightened attitude and one that Fed Farmers could consider