Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 146
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
A
walk around our wetland on Sunday morning pinpointed a serious contamination
of the area recently excavated for
the M2PP expressway. This is on the eastern boundary of the wetland close to
town and had been leaking out into two small ponds close to the fence. Here are the pictures.
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This
was originally a drain that came from a sewerage holding tank in Rata Road, the road that runs along the eastern side of the wetland. However closer
inspection ruled the tank out as the culprit and revealed a dumped chillybin as
the source of the contamination.
Someone
has backed their ute up and fired the bin into the waterway.
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Previously
this would have found its way into the Wharemauku stream but the reconstruction of
this area means that it is now dissipating through the wetland. This will
already have affected the marine life in the area, and also this male
putangitangi (paradise duck).
He’s been hanging around here for a while which indicates
he has a mate sitting on her nest close by.
The
responsible authority is the Greater Wellingon Regional Council (GWRC) and they have
been very responsive to communication, firing off the emails and phoning
through, but three days later are yet to undertake a site visit.
We
will be keeping you posted on developments.
Meanwhile
we were pleased to see a story surface in the local newspaper Kapiti News,
confirming our investigation of the breakup of the bitumen surface of the M2PP
expressway. Repairs were now underway on 3.2 kilometres of the six months old
highway. This leaves a lot of questions unanswered… Here are some of them-
Who is
paying for these repairs? Is the water seepage a result of laying bitumen in
inappropriate weather during our wet summer? Was this the result of government
pressure to get the expressway open? Has the water seepage penetrated into the
embankments of this sandhills highway? Why are there potholes now appearing in
the cycleway? Who is paying for repairing these? Why were a number of senior
managers recently ‘let go’ from the NZTA? The vapid response of the NZTA makes
it unlikely we’ll get answers to these questions, but at least we’re still able
to pose them.
Track
we were listening to while posting this? It’s
that great old Ella Fitzgerald standard My
Happiness…
Whether skies are gray or blue
Any place on earth will do
Just as long as I'm with you
My happiness
It doesn’t get any better than this…
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