Pollution levels rising in the Wharemauku - 3 -The destruction of a New Zealand wetland

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 96

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Bonjour, once again to our French friends, who may or may not be rugby people, though you read it here first – the NZ-French matchup at Cardiff Arms…And this is to say that everyone down in this hemisphere is very very nervous about what you guys are going to pull out of your cockaded tricornes this year. 

Though now we can get back to our story on pollution in the Wharemauku.

Polluted lower reaches of the Wharemauku

No-one is talking about this pollution, including the agency that should be monitoring it, the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) – our waterway pollutant watchdog. So we have had to assemble our own evidential record and publish it here. And bear in mind while we go through this, that the NZTA has denied all along, through the Board of Inquiry, that there ever was a wetland here.

Expressway bridge site Raumati beach

What we are going to do is try and track what the NZTA has been doing regarding pumping polluted water into Drain 7 and a good place to start is with water they are now pumping from the northern site of the bridge construction. They have dug a stream diversion around the bridge site and are lifting water from this  across the Wharemauku, into the area where the dune lake used to be.

Pump taking water from new Wharemauku diversion 

Over the Wharemauku and into the destroyed dune lake

This water collected in the excavated sand dunes on the north  side of the bridge construction. It had been left to settle, so was  relatively clear; clear enough perhaps, for it to have been pumped out into the Wharemauku.  They aren’t doing this however but pumping it back into the site where the dune lake used to be and which they have previously gone to a great deal of trouble to drain. The water in the destroyed lake however, is now filling back to the levels it had reached, before it was drained in August. And it is that draining drama we are now going to focus on. 

This new pumping activity however, has been useful in revealing the NZTA’s draining methodology. The pump was observed around 7am on a Sunday morning (The site is shut down on a Sunday though work usually begins at 7.30 during the week). It was unattended and had been left working through Saturday night, though there are residential houses close by.

Hard at it. Draining the dune lake early August 

It was back in August that the NZTA first began draining what was left of the dune lake. We have noted how the dune lake areas had expanded once the NZTA began levelling the area and carting sand from the surrounding dune lands onto the expressway –building up its escarpment. Despite being sat in a swamp basin the dune lake always ran clean, but with the disturbance of the peat the water on this site has became polluted.

Drainage channels to hidden drain.  

The engineers then began excavating channels between these areas connecting them up and building a passageway that led back to an inaccessible  hidden drain, that channelled water (underground) into Drain 7 and thence the wharemauku.

Sump spilling polluted water into hidden drain

This was easy to track if you knew what you were looking for; but who would think the NZTA would begin pumping water into Drain 7 through such a circuitous farrago. Why go to all that trouble when they might simply spill it straight into the wharemauku. There might be many reasons for them to do this, though the one that immediately springs to conservation mind is that they needed to release this pollutant water, below the monitors set up in the wharemauku to detect pollution leaking from the site. Why? Because the site could be shut down if they reached prescribed levels.

Compressor draining polluted water early August

We gathered incontrovertible evidence that that was exactly what the NZTA had done. And took it to our environmental watchdog – the GWRC…

Pollution in Drain 7 early August

We have  a lot of time for the GWRC, because it's working in an environmental no-mans-land set up by the Board of Inquiry. This Board has effectively overruled the RMA leaving the NZTA to work without environmental legislative oversight so they appear to be  making up the rules as they go along. And these rules are based on expediency. Helping this is the fact that the GWRC have formed a team to work in close liaison with the NZTA to fast track environmental consent processes as they arise. As we saw in the financial crisis of 2008 however once Business and its auditors chum up, expect trouble.

What we didn’t expect however was that despite this cosy relationship, the GWRC had no knowledge of what was going on at this excavation site.

We have taken enough of your time  in this post however, and will continue this story in our next one.

Though here’s an update on our dabchick chicks who are thriving down at the Waikanae estuary. Which provides a timely reminder of why we’re out here, undertaking  this investigative toil.   

Two dabchick chicks with mum.

One noticeably bigger than the other.  Heres  the largest.

Track we were listening to while posting this… we’re on a Carter Family binge so its  I'm  thinking tonight of my Blue Eyes'   

'Twould been better for us both had we never

In this wide and wicked world had never met,

But the pleasure we both seemed to gather

I'm sure, love, I'll never forget

Oh, I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes

Who is sailing far over the sea

I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes

And I wonder if he ever thinks of me

The women were the heart and soul of this band though it was AP who collected the songs, a fascinating toil, that managed to archive songs that stretched back through the 19th century and then some.   What it revealed amongst many other things was  how music was universally present in those lives, not simply in the church congregations on Sunday's, but in the kitchens and wash houses of the local people.  They made music for themselves whereas today (sigh) we spend our time listening to others make it.

Jill Studd’s Blog

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Pollution levels rising in the Wharemauku - 2 -The destruction of a New Zealand wetland

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 95

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

This post is for Harvey Franklin  1928-2015

Professor of Geography – Victoria University – Wellington NZ

“There are no authorities, only evidence.”

We are continuing the story of the polluting of the Wharemauku by the Government consortium led by the NZTA, currently constructing an expressway that has destroyed a rare Raumti Beach dune lake.  This will take a while, so bear with us.

We posted this foto on our last blog to show how seriously the NZTA isn’t taking its environmental responsibilities (as mandated by a Board of Inquiry). This intake monitor set in the Wharemuku, measures pollution levels before the creek passes through the expressway excavations. The NZTA has made a grandiose show of its commitment to best environmental practice, (through the media and clipboard hoardings), but this monitor, which had been sitting above the water level since at least July, tells a very different story.

Upstream monitor 11 October

Following the post however, we find that the NZTA has stirred itself and fixed it. It’s too late of course, because we’ve been recording their performance over two years now, but it does provide a lesson in effective environmental activism. What is driving this project are financial and political urgencies. There are contract deadlines to meet and the usual dismal array of politicians to appease. So believe nothing you read or hear, but everything you research for yourself. The environment will only come into account where the project gets negative air time in the media. And this is starting to happen (-see Forest & Bird Magazine Spring 2015 –Why Would You Bulldoze This?) .  

The Wharemauku now appears to be permanently polluted in its lower reaches as a result of the expressway excavations though you will only get a convincing understanding of this, after prolonged investigation. It’s very complex, but we’ve spent a lot of time on it, so let’s take a walk up the creek and try and get a picture of what’s going on.

Wharemauku - back of airport looking towrads expressway

This is former swamp forest country so every time we get a reasonable rain of around 20-30mm the waterways discolour. A swamp black liquor seeps out as the water drains through the underground peat and thence into the Wharemauku. No-one has a good understanding of what is going on underground, including the NZTA which admitted this to the Board of Inquiry. This creek is spring fed however, so the water would usually clear after two or three days. Following the expressway excavations however, the discolouration has become permanent. But where is it coming from?

Polluted Wharemauku - lower reaches

This foto of the lower reaches of the creek was taken this morning. We haven’t had significant rain for a week or more so it should be running clear, but isn’t. As we move up the creek towards the expressway, there are two drains that feed into it from the north around the airport. After rain these also run black, but as you can see from these images they are now running clear clean water.  

Northern Drain 1 running clear

Northern drain 2 running clear

This one (below) isn’t however. It comes in from the opposite, southern side of the wharemauku, and passes through the expressway excavations.

Pollutant from Drain 7 into Wharemauku

It is Drain 7 and here you see it feeding polluted water into the Wharemauku from the south. It is itself part of a network of manmade waterways that drain water through the south of this part of Raumati. These drains never dry up which indicates they may have a common source underground, somewhere up in the nearby Tararua foothills. If the water is clear to the north it should also be clear to the south, but it isn’t. The only new activity in this area is the expressway construction so Drain 7 must be picking up its pollutant as it passes through expressway disturbance.

Wharemauku above Drain 7

Above Drain 7 the Wharemauku is more discoloured than it should be, but not unacceptably so. The pollutant here appears to be seeping through from the bridge site because it is clear above it, while the NZTA has set a net to catch the worst of it as it prepares to divert the Wharemauku around its bridge building site.

Pollutant netted in the Wharemauku

 So everywhere the NZTA is working within public view it is behaving itself.  The source of the bad stuff in Drain 7 however is hidden away and hereby hangs the tale…

Hidden drain at expressway site - one source of the bad stuff in Drain 7

We have taken enough of your time however, and will continue this story in our next post, (in a couple of days)… 

Meanwhile we’ll leave you with some good news about the dabchicks we featured in a fracas in August at the Waikanae estuary. 8 weeks later they have emerged out on the lagoon and for the first time we have two chicks. 

Two parents -father foreground - two white flecked chick heads behind Mum

The parents hide them away in the rushes while they feed, so it’s difficult getting clean shots. They then ferry them back to their base on their backs. They can have 3 or even four chicks and we always wondered how they ferried so many. 

Up for the ride - On Mum - head of one  - legs sticking out of the other

The female has two chicks on her back here, but they shared them on the ride home. These youngsters are getting to a size where the parents are refusing to carry them, but over clear water they become vulnerable to kahu (and eels), so up onto the parents backs they go.

Parents uploaded and heading home

Song we were listening to while posting this. Ok, we’re not schmaltz addicts but some of you out there will be, so we’re listening to this for you. Since I don’t have you  - The Skyliners

I don't have plans and schemes,

And I don't have hopes and dreams,

I-I-I don't have anything

Since I don't have you.

Can it get more mawkish than this? Of course it can…

Jill Studd’s Blog 

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The death of a New Zealand Wetland - pollution rising in the Wharemauku

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 94

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

First up we would just like to send the big bonjour to our French friends, who have been with us for some time now and to let  you all know that we are keeping a watch on Team Francaise in the Rugby World Cup! Do you all live in Paris? We hope so.

Now back to business…

In a previous post we noted that Forest & Bird had published an article about the destruction of our local dune lake. It has stirred  public interest including from national media, and appears to have annoyed the NZTA somewhat because, having chased us out of the area on one occasion, they have now posted a 24/7 guard. (Apologies to the taxpayer who are picking up the tab).

0800rentaguard 'I've got my eyes on youse'

As we continue to keep an eye on the destruction it’s all starting to get somewhat  cloak and dagger, with an NZTA manager called in on a Sunday, to do a reccy about 10 minutes after we left the area.

The SHADOW is on our side - they seek them here - They seek them there. 

We’ve been away from Raumati Beach for a while however, and found the contrast revealing.

Swans with cygnets - Spring 2012

The full flush of spring nesting would now be underway, but there are no signs of bird life in the area, leave alone nesting activity, despite remnant surface water remaining near the excavations.

Panorama of the same view today

The small colony of parera-cross birds we noted in autumn, before the destruction got under way, appear to have left the area, though town mallards are continuing to do fly pasts, where the dune lake used to be. They look for a place to land but finding only desolation, veer away. Their flight path is calculated and deliberate and this continues to increase our understanding of these animal’s co-ordinated intelligence and cultural life. The waterbirds migrate during the day which makes it very difficult to build a picture of their daily life, but it is clear from this activity that they remembered the lake, and were attempting to return to it - as a fertile feeding ground - as a place to find compadre’s - then a mate  - and for females, as a reasonably secure nesting area.

Nor can we find any sign of welcome swallow’s down here. They are usually starting a nest under the wharemauku bridge, and hang about this area feeding, sitting on the fence at the back of the airport, or sheltering under the bridge. They appear to have moved further up the creek and closer to town, away from the construction activity.

Another area we have been monitoring is the NZTA’s monitoring of their own pollution, that enters the wharemauku from the site and here we have quite a tale to tell. Let’s begin with how things stand today. A gauze filter has now been placed across the wharemauku to capture effluent from the site. All well and good you might think, except that it is the whitebait season and eels are beginning to reinhabit this waterway. So it is stopping this marine migration, including of endangered giant kokopu punua, from venturing further up the creek.

Then there’s the problem of the upstream monitor pictured here…

Up stream monitor intake

This monitor is an entry gauge, set to record the clarity of creek water before the excavation, so that any increase due to the site work can be picked up at the downstream monitor. If it gets above a prescribed level it can close the work down. But as you can see, there’s little point in recording downstream pollution if the upstream one is sitting out of the water like this one has been for a couple of months now. 

But there’s a more serious issue raised here, because, while the creek water at this entry end is relatively clear, further downstream it has turned this colour.

Wharemauku discolouration in lower reaches

So what’s going on? All will be revealed in our next post…        

Track we were listening to while posting this -Dark Moon. 

Dark moon, 

What is the cause

Your light withdraws

Is it because, is it because

I've lost my love?

Some tunes never lose their melancholy fizz and this is one - from Bonnie Guitar, out of 1957. She’s originally from Seattle and is now 92 years old – still working with her own band… Better not  let her out on a Blood Moon like that of a couple of weeks ago; though look out Saturday night – wherever she is…

Jill Studd’s Blog

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Kererū – the New Zealand wood pigeon (and the refugee crisis).

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 93

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Nodding off - Kereru taking midmorning nap

The kererū census for 2015 is under way and we would encourage everyone if you spot a kererū up until 27^th September  then jump onto www.greatkererucount.nz    And record it.

Tairere berries

The kererū is our large and very pretty native pigeon. It is crucial to the survival of many of our forest trees including tawa, tairere and matai, because it is large enough to devour then disperse their large seeds. It provides a key link in forest regeneration.

These birds are delightful to watch this time of year for they can be seen looping into the air and, swooping down, which is all part of courtship behaviour –males impressing females. And while they look rather cumbersome birds, we’ve seen them flying through dense forest at alarming speeds. You can’t quite believe what you’re seeing and think they must come to harm, yet never seem to.

They also play an important role in Maoritanga. We witnessed this a few years ago when bussing a sceptical Iwi group in to assess whether they could support protection for a forest reserve.  As their  senior Kuia stepped from the bus a kereru came out of the forest and swooped over her head. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ she declared. ‘You have my support.’ Then climbed back onto the bus. This dissolved all the tension, though there were still some feisty negotiations to manage.

The female kererū are very good mothers and when they leave their youngsters they can often be heard calling back to them, with the young ones replying from the nest. 

Kereru on nikau over back fence

Like this one they can often be seen in the towns, though they tend to stay up near forested areas.  We seldom see them down here on the coast but there is a sizable population on the other side of town, up in the Tararua foothills.

In this short clip a kererū is feeding on nikau berries right in the centre of a built up area. 

Sound track is Woody Guthrie’s Deportee . by Cisco Houston –

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,

Our work contract's out and we have to move on;

Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,

They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves. 

Crossing into Hungary - Aljazeera

Every day we have seen the refugee crisis worsening in Europe and every day the evidence of how much the world hasn’t changed since Guthrie penned this classic migrant protest song. Those shameful behaviours have been matched over here in the Antipodes with the Government turning its back until public outrage began to build at which point it offered to do the very minimum it thought it could get away with. And it has got away with it. The Nation’s conscience has been quelled allowing the citizens to get back to their latte's, internet shopping, and gossip columns. So here we take a vote of thanks to the Germans for reminding the World how human beings can and should behave.   

Jill Studd’s Blog

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The critically endangered New Zealand Parera - Part Two

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 92

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Stop Press 

Two thumbs-up for Forest and Bird

Followers of these commentaries will be pleased to know that Forest & Bird  has just published an article on the destruction of this Ramati Beach dune lake in the Spring edition of their magazine. You can read it and then we would encourage you to join. F&B are our leading conservation organisation - the engine room of conservation in New Zealand.

And now back to New Zealand Parera.

 

We were talking about the problems of making reliable observations about behavioural  differences between parera, parera-cross and introduced mallard ducks. Another complicating factor is that not only do the birds look very similar, (especially in adolescence), but their behaviours change where they have access to public ponds.

On the wharf and on the make - domesticated mallard pair

We were observing wild populations of parera-cross birds. We judged they were wild because unlike mallards we couldn’t get close to them, though another indicator was that we very rarely saw parera-cross birds at public ponds. This isn’t because they were rare however, but because they haven’t become domesticated into public areas, like the mallard. (Because of there familiarity with mallard on public ponds, it is rare to find a New Zealander who knows the difference between these two species, or is even aware that we have a local native duck.)

The wild parera-cross birds at the lake, seemed to form a hapu grouping of up to a dozen or more birds, but they can lose half that number in May when the duck-shooting season begins. (It speaks for itself that while Fish & Game undertake research into mallards they fail to mention or show any regard for the plight of parera for which they and their predecessors are responsible).   

A day's spoil - Enough is never  enough when it comes to humans  killing animals 

We aren’t aware of  research on this subject, but our hunch is that these parera-cross birds share a lot of DNA. They are cousins and know each other and the areas they frequent. They don’t just fly around at random looking for food and a mate.    

Gender diverse - a parera cross hapu

With mallard however, it is the males that form into groups through spring and into summer. They hook up in gangs of four or five and there is a definite pecking order. To our great surprise these groups never seemed to include grey headed parera-cross males, though we often saw grey headed parera-cross males, fighting with these green headed ducks.   Parera are usually smaller than mallard but parera-cross are larger than their pure-bred cousins and can hold their own, especially if there are females involved.

Parera-cross mallard standoff - Raumati Beach dune lake

And the role of the females as we have previously noted, is crucial. We have seen females flirting (successfully)  to attract the male of their choice, and trying to move in on an already partnered male. More somberly they have also abandoned ducklings following the attentions of an insistent male. There are good and not so good  mums (and dads)  in every species it seems, though once attached, the female will usually stick to her mate through thick and thin.

Parera-cross defending mate 

Yet the genetic lines between parera and other species also appear to be transgressed all the time because  a more general interbreeding between these waterbird species seems to be taking place. Once again it is hard to get clear consistent evidence, but we have seen male parera-cross with shoveller tail feathers – a parera-cross male paired up with female grey teal with the two nurturing five adolescent parera-teal ducklings. 

Parera male with grey teal family

Then a female mallard with a grey teal head who was obviously being shunned by her mallard compatriots – but then more alarmingly, a very rare and endangered female brown teal-pateke paired up with a mallard male.    

Most striking of all is one incident that didn't involve interbreeding, but the fostering by a mallard female of an orphaned NZ Scaup. Scaup are diving ducks and this chick caused havoc on a public  pond  when it began leading its  siblings astray along with all the other ducklings on the pond, as they followed it in diving underwater.  It all looked like great fun to everyone save the mothers of two other broods on the pond. They were very annoyed with one marching her brood down to the local creek to remove her youngsters from harms way…       

Track we were listening to while posting this  Standing On The Corner - The Four Lads  For those of you who think music began with Straight Outa Compton here's some pretty marginal stuff from mainstream midfifties. It's white doo wop with an edge...

Standing on the corner

Watching all the girls go by

Standing on the corner

Underneath the springtime sky

Brother, you can't go to jail

For what you're thinking

Or for the woo look in your eye

You're only standing on the corner

Watching all the girls

Watching all the girls

Watching all the girls

Go by

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