We may never know exactly what happened to the Havelock North water supply, but either way, how about stopping the pollution of rivers by sewage plants and intensive agriculture?
Havelock North – listening to the people
Catherine Delahunty
Swimmable Rivers tour – Waikirikiri/Selwyn
This week, we had our second stop on our Swimmable Rivers tour, this time in Canterbury at the Waikirikiri/Selwyn River. I had a great day with our two Canterbury MPs Eugenie Sage and Mojo Mathers and our amazing Christchurch staff. The Waikirikiri/ Selwyn rivers runs from the hills to Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere through the plains. […]
Havelock North outbreak – what might have caused it
The cause of the contamination in Havelock’s water remains unclear. It has been established that bacterial contamination from a ruminant animal (cow, deer, or sheep) resulted in people becoming ill. We also know heavy rain and surface flooding occurred just before the outbreak, and prior to that warm and dry conditions had caused cracks to form […]
A day by the Waikirikiri/Selwyn River
This week I went to Canterbury to meet a river, the Waikirikiri/Selwyn, which flows from the hill country down to Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere through the Canterbury Plains. Mojo Mathers and local Green District Councillor for Selwyn Peter Hill took me for a drive out to Coe’s Ford as the best place to start.
Ruamāhanga – swimmable!
Last Thursday, we carried out our first river tour day in the Swimmable Rivers campaign, in which we are calling on the Government to raise the minimum standard for rivers from wadeable to swimmable. The Ruamāhanga is the river of Metiria’s tupuna and the heart of the Wairarapa. It has some magical spots and some […]
Catherine Delahunty: A great Budget would…
A great Budget would embrace the challenge of our polluted rivers and move the money away from justifying the status quo water rules into cleaning up waterways. A great Budget would take the Ministry for the Environment freshwater budget and prioritise a plan for swimmable rivers.
The Price of Water
This week I hosted a public meeting at EIT in Hawkes Bay to discuss how we might put a price on the commercial use of water, so that water may be valued and treated more sustainably. I invited a great panel of speakers from a range of backgrounds. I was unsure how concerned people would […]
The Andrew Judd Fan Club and everyday racism
Most of the racist semi-abusive letters and emails that we receive at the Greens seem to be from older people. How can I tell? Possibly it’s the handwritten letters, usually from Tauranga or Canterbury, in the formal style we were taught at school many years ago. I answer these politely as the Pākehā Te Tiriti […]
Water for grass
Last Saturday, my colleague Eugenie Sage took me for a drive across the Canterbury Plains. I had seen from the air the landuse changes across the plains in recent times; a patchwork of crops and stock raising has been transformed into a green desert. Driving through, the treeless expanses are vast. The paddocks are dominated […]
A quiet catastrophe for Wairoa
This week, I went to Wairoa and met people affected by the Waihi dam failure and the huge impact of silt build up on the waterways. This disaster started last year when the Waihi dam behind Wairoa sluice gate broke and tonnes of built-up silt poured into the river. The main damage occurred between November and January, […]