Defects appear in New Zealand Expressway, 3 months after opening

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 139

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

A Rushed Job -M2PP under construction June 2016

Wharemauku Bridge under construction June 2016

Local media are reporting signs of deterioration in the recently opened M2PP expressway here in Kapiti, in the stretch between our town centre (Paraparaumu) and the Waikanae River bridge. These include tarmac cracking, discolouration and apparent sinking. These reports the NZTA have acknowledged, but played down, limiting the damage to the road surface with carefully weighted understatement as … ‘discolouration and changes to texture’.

They are monitoring the situation which, they emphasize,  does not pose a risk to motorists, despite the fact they have been unable to  pinpoint the cause. However the further statement ‘It is too early to determine a timeframe for remedial work’ appears to indicate that there are genuine engineering concerns they have yet to get to the bottom of.

What might they be? In the lack of any details coming out, here is our assessment.

We took a trip through the affected area and did indeed find signs of deterioration which the NZTA had marked out. We could photograph the general area but, putting safety first, it proved too dangerous to stop and get some close ups. However here are the results of the drive.

Joining Expressway from Kapiti Road heading north.

Marked surface heading south from Waikanae.

This surface marking is probably inconsequential (a paint spill?), but just beyond this area a long series of cracks have appeared in the centre of the left lane, and these do look problematic.

Approaching Kapiti Road exit.

Here we are preparing to leave the expressway at the Kapiti Road exit heading south. Just before this area the NZTA have marked a series of what seem to be small sinkholes that have appeared in the left lane. These are similar to potholes that have opened up in the accompanying cycleway, some of which have been marked by the NZTA in a similar way viz a viz...

Marked pothole Raumati Beach cycleway

So what might the trouble be?

These cycleway potholes have appeared after sealing and are obviously the result of sinkage in the path, after construction. The pathways and the expressway itself, were constructed from sand quarried from the sides of the expressway and the sinkage a result of settling after completion. Presumably there are ‘best practice’ rules that determine how long they should be left to settle, but with the rush to get the expressway open before the election –have they been followed? And is this also the problem with the issues affecting the expressway itself.

At the Board of Inquiry it was stated that the expressway would need to be left to settle for six months before it could be sealed, then opened. Has this direction been followed?

Another contributing cause may be the after-effects of the Kaikoura earthquake which shook up this area and resulted in liquefaction in wetland areas. This hasn’t, to our knowledge, been reported in the media. We are still seeing a lot of dirty brown water in these wetlands, a characteristic of liquefaction (rain usually turns the drains here black not brown, while the dune lake before construction began, was always clear). So what were the effects on the expressway itself of a severe two minute shake which delayed the opening for three months. The only news we have heard is that the bitumen plant was affected; not the expressway itself.

Sand is a very useful medium to use to build roadways – it’s cheap, local and easy to fabricate;  but it is erodible, and in this project has been piled over pakihi (coastal swamp), which has caused subsidence in other roads put through this area in the past. There are signs also of the sides of the expressway beginning to be eroded by water draining off the expressway. Here are photographs of some of this erosion in Raumati Beach.

Sand erosion M2PP E-way, Raumati Beach

Ditto

Repeato...

If this is happening to the ramped sides, then what is going on inside the constructed roadway and below it?

Track we were listening to while posting this? Well, this request goes out to the NZTA’s design engineers, with Lesley Gore hitting her doleful girly best, It's My Party... 

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to

Cry if I want to, cry if I want to

You would cry too if it happened to you

This is a melody  John Lennon then picked up and morphed into the male version, though the original goes all the way back to the 18^th Century and Robby Burns’ Mary Morison  

I sigh’d and said among them a’,

‘Ye are na Mary Morison

Environmental artist Jill Studd's blog

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Duck surprises at a New Zealand dune lake

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 138

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

This pair of what looked like domestic visitors, turned up at the dune lake a couple of weeks ago and have decided to stay put. We were at a loss to identify them so turned to experts in Whanganui, Ridgway Lythgoe, Colin Ogle and Peter Frost for help. Here, with thanks, is Peter’s analysis…

This is a domestic duck, obviously with a predominance of mallard genes. (The other source of genes in domestic ducks is muscovy, the genes of which are clearly not present here.)

Domestic ducks of this kind are usually some variant of the ‘subspecies’ Anas platyrhynchos domesticus, although this subspecies is obviously not a natural one but has been applied to domestic birds, given the many hundreds of years of domestication of mallards. Ducks of this lineage have been further selectively bred to produce breeds such as the Indian runner duck, Campbell, Aylesbury (which are all white, as is the Pekin duck),  Abacot Ranger and many more (see https://poultrykeeper.com/duck-breeds/). These breeds in turn, if they go feral, which they often do, can interbreed; some may even breed with wild-type mallards.

Male domesticus 

My guess is that this duck is some mix either of Abacot Ranger or Silver Appleyard (or even a hybrid of both) and perhaps Indian runner (the male’s somewhat upright stance suggests that its legs are situated further back on the pelvic girdle than the usual mallard, a feature that is characteristic of runner ducks and which is why they can run rather than waddle).

There really isn’t much more to say, except that there are many of these domestic variants around, especially close to human habitation.

Peter Frost

Science Support Service -Project development; research; training;

scientific writing, editing and proofreading

You can contact Peter at

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Frost4

There has been a dramatic local decline in bird populations over the last few weeks and we are hoping this is due to normal seasonal migration, and not the duck shooting season which opened at the start of the month. Previous to the Expressway development we would usually have up to 20 mallards in resident through winter but this year we are reduced to these two, caught in siesta.

Mallard pair

This coincides with a notable decline in ducks seen further up the Wharemauku in the town centre(where they can be fed by the public), though this could still be the result of the disturbance caused by the Expressway construction.

It has been good however to see shovellers and grey teal finding a home here. 

Male Australasian shoveller

Female grey teal

Two male shovellers have been regularly sighted but only one female, and this  gave rise to a forelorn attempt by the lone male to attract a young female grey teal away from her mate. 

Grey teal pair and male shoveller

He got short shift from her… 

That's close enough (she  scootled away back to her mate)

One thing we haven’t seen before at this time of year are these Pied Stilts. 

Pied stilts

They usually migrate (though they don’t leave this country) but these three don’t appear to be doing that and our guess is that they are the three youngsters we followed through summer. The adults may not have gone far, because there is still a colony at Pauatahanui about 20 km south as the pied stilt flies. 

Pied stilts

With much more room to breed now, we are looking forward to an increase in the local population of these delightful birds

Spot the intruder

Finally an addition to our spot-the-intruder competition… Winter starts tomorrow and the wet weather hasn't let up since last spring; but the little indigenous guy in this foto continues to survive and thrive. 

Track we were listening to today… we are going back, way back into the Kiwi underground of the sixties  where  the La De Da’s went  head to head with the Rolling Stones, to send out this airy roiling classic… How Is The Air Up There. 

The first time that I saw you

Said you'd hope I never change

Your folks took one look at me

And they sure acted strange

This post goes out to art aficionado and local confederate LK (she knows who she is!) currently gallivanting round Brexit country and out into the EU  – time to get home and get those broad beans back in the ground…Spring is on the way.     

Environmental artist Jill Studd’s blog

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Rare film of New Zealand dabchicks-weweia courting

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 137

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Here we continue our romance with our delightful little grebe the dabchick. Early in February (late summer), we posted a clip of a dabchick pair busy feeding a youngster.

Dabchicks with youngster -13 February 2017

It is now late autumn, and here is the evidence with this surly weather system storming across Kapiti Island around 9am this morning.

South end of Kapiti Island bearing the brunt

For three months  the wetland birds have been hanging around in adolescent flocks but they are now beginning to pair off. Dabchicks are notoriously secretive. They can’t walk on land  and usually fly only when agitated. 

White tailed dabchick at Ratanui wetland

They do so at night, close to the water and over short distances but are very poor fliers so we don’t really know how they move around, only that they do. They are also underwater a great deal and we lose sight of them then as well.

So we were delighted to shoot this footage of the courtship of these delightful little grebes. It was early morning and at a distance, so the light is very poor, but it gives a clear idea of the intimate dance undertaken in the process of pairing up.

We’ve set this to one of John Mayall’s jaunty tune’s, Let’s Work Together; which shows clearly how this pas de dieux is an intimately, improvised and playful dance. This is not the behaviour of the conditioned automata so dearly beloved by the scientific imagination. It is as if the two birds are listening to the same soundtrack, so attuned are they to each other.

The dance is led off by the female (she is on the left, slightly smaller and more colourful), who takes all the risk in initiating the cavort, but she soon has the male hooked and takes off to continue underwater, where we can’t follow.

The closer we observe our fellow creatures the more clearly we  see the similarities, not the difference.

Track we were listening to while posting this was the Marseillaise from 1792! 

Enfants, que l'Honneur, la Patrie

Fassent l'objet de tous nos vœux!

Ayons toujours l'âme nourrie

Des feux qu'ils inspirent tous deux. (bis)

Soyons unis! Tout est possible;

Nos vils ennemis tomberont,

Alors les Français cesseront

De chanter ce refrain terrible:

So Viva La France, for once again setting the standard!!!

France - the balloons go up!!

Jill Studd’s Blog

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New Zealand heads off US in repeal of environmental law

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 136

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Government gives two fingers to our environmental legislation

This conservative NZ government has been trying for 9 years now to repeal the RMA, (our environmental law) that ironically, it was itself responsible for passing back in 1991. Its allies had been refusing to help, until finally it succeeded with the support of the Maori Party.

This is a very unholy alliance and while we support a much louder voice for Maori in Governmental processes and decision making, this is not the way to do it. The change effectively excludes Maori from the provisions of a law that applies to everyone else. The response to this has been very muted, but imagine the outcry if a progressive government had run such a shabby political gambit. It is gerrymandered legislation however, and unlikely to survive passed the term of the current regime.

The Government has been relentless in its attack on the environment,  starving DoC of adequate funding, allowing mining in protected areas, turning the EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) into a toothless lackey, used to fast-track projects that bypass the law,  then, when frustrated in getting its repeal legislation through parliament, resorting to regulation. 

(For our US punsters, this is the local equivalent to the issuing of an executive order, though over here we don’t have your judicial system to review such behaviour. In fact, aged High Court Justices are usually used to front fast-tracked inquiries.)

It did this to undercut local authority power, administered through district plans, to control the wholesale felling of trees. The end result has been the appearance of stumps like these throughout our local neighbourhood.

What can be done?   

Well, we might have sat on our hands, or bleated away in the press, but our activist response has been to reverse this destruction by beginning a programme of replanting native seedlings off our own bat. These are being placed into areas where they originally flourished and seem relatively safe in the longer term. We have to be careful here to use plants endemic to this area and have been fortunate to stumble upon a cheap and ready supply. We are keeping locations classified but here’s a shot of one of our fifth column transplants, hard at work, flourishing into maturity.

Spot the intruder!

And here is a rare photo of a rarish black shag, a youngster, perched atop the Wharemauku bridge. This is from 50  yards away but she wouldn't allow us to get any closer.

Finally another intrigue down at the Raumati Beach dunelake, where we stumbled across this pukeko and her youngster.

We had to be very quick with this as the little one shot into cover immediately though again, we were 50 yards away. It was very early morning and a little further on we were astonished to find another brood, this time of five chicks, around two weeks old though weren’t quick enough to get a shot of them. It is very late in the season for these birds to be bringing out youngsters and many may not survive the coming winter. However it augurs well for next years breeding season…

Track we were listening to today – Judy Collins it has to be scarifying her way through Nina Simone's - Pirate Jenny  

Then one night there's a scream in the night

And you say, "who's that kicking up a row?"

And ya see me kinda starin' out the winda

And you say, "what's she got to stare at now?"

Environmental artist Jill Studd's blog 

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New Zealand wetland and its motorway - Mixed messages on managing traffic in the 21st Century

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 135

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Paradise duck and Grey Teal flocking over the recently opened M2PP expressway

The expressway was opened in a fanfare of self-congratulation but after an initial outbreak of universal happiness… (families, we can here reveal, have been traveling from Wellington (60km), to try out the new highway, whilst fighting over who is going to drive!!!)… reality is beginning to sink in.

Instead of clearing the traffic jam into Wellington each morning the expressway has doubled commuting time to an hour and a half, with jams recorded as far back as Porirua (23km). This follows the experience of all major motorway initiatives that simply shift jams to other areas as our roads fill with more and more and more traffic. (Most of our neighbours run two cars, with one having four parked up on the lawn).

In the meantime retail shops are recording significant drops in their monthly takings as the bypass takes effect.

The wetland areas opened up however, continue to provide a very positive story. This area had been designed to drain dry, and this fueled our initial pessimism about the future of the area, but though the area has been completely remade, we are continually surprised by what is going on down here. 

Dunelake prior to expressway excavation

Dunelake from google, prior to excavation

Excavations underway showing greatly enlarged areas. The green paddocks on the upper right are now a metre or more above the brown areas in the centre.

This area is usually dry between late January and early April but we now have water all year round. Because of the very wet summer (and now autumn), it is too early to predict this will be permanent, but in talking to one of the managers on site, it is clear the NZTA is also surprised by the permanence of the wetland area  opened  up. Their theory is that the area has been excavated below the local water table and if so, then this is likely to be permanent. The settling of the rear areas also appears to be aiding this with back flow occurring (outside the floods). 

The birdlife is showing its appreciation and appears not to be affected by the traffic flows close by. We now have wetland either side of the new road and while the original dune lake could host up to seventy birds, we have been sighting double this number, though their species variety has changed.

Paradise duck roosting- Western side of x/way

Paradise duck (up to 40) have settled permanently here since January, then mallard and parera-cross  ducks (50). Another prominent waterbird is the introduced Canadian goose, but what we are most delighted with is the colony of grey teal which were previously rare visitors.

Grey Teal roosting - west side

Around  twenty teal seemed to have found a base  here and they flock at times, mixed in with the paradise ducks (Putangitangi). Up to four pairs of pied stilt have also been resident over this summer. They have bred well  this year and  all going well, we should see more pairs of these elegant waders next year. 

anxious pied stilt parent investigates the photographer - x/way to left

One royal spoonbill seems to visit regularly but we still haven’t seen the rarer birds – scaup, shoveller, white faced heron and then the dabchick, while the local frog population has completely disappeared; though perhaps these will also return over time.           

Plantings on the east - mid December 

Same view a month later

The area has been replanted with local native species and here major problems are developing with weeds. This dune area provides extreme conditions with a swampy winter/spring and then drought-prone summers. We remain sceptical about the success of these plantings though they are off to a great start with the wet weather. However the weeds are making an even better start and here’s the evidence, above and below.

Dunelake west - rear mid December

Same spot a month later - weeded up

The NZTA are committed to a four year programme of weed control, when the natives should have developed a canopy to inhibit weed growth. We have experience in managing weed control programmes however and the moment you stop consistent  work on them is the moment  all your hard work slides into reverse. There are signs of weeding and spraying going on but it isn’t making much impact on the weeds in the lower reaches, although in this photo (below), the native rushes can be seen making a comeback and helping out. They should grow to dominate this area.

This channel appears to be draining the wrong way with wildling native rushes back taking over  

Meantime, here is another sign that the seasons are out of joint – a wary black swan female with her cygnets in mid-March (autumn over here), at Ratanui wetland. The father is out of the picture.

black swan family - Ratanui

Track we’ve been listening too while posting this? Well, we’ve been falling for Little Richard, all over again, because isn’t he adorable…  

Well, I saw Uncle John with long tall Sally

He saw Aunt Mary comin' and he ducked back in the alley 

oh baby 

Yeah baby, woo baby

Havin' me some fun tonight, yeah, 

Havin' some fun tonite.

Environmental artist Frances Jill Studd’s blog

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