Author: grant corbishley

Published as Issue No. 73

19 June, 2013

TRiG planting and working bee: this Saturday on the View Rd South / Te Raekaihau Headland Park. Starting at 2pm, the TRiG group and locals will hopefully be joined by the Places for Penguins Group from Tarragona Bay. Bring spades, gloves, and a cuppa.

From Miranda of Hornsey Rd: Oil Free Wellington will talk about the threat of deep sea oil drilling off Wellington’s south coast, an area called the Pegasus basin. All welcome next Wednesday 26 June at 7.30 at Houghton Valley School, with time for discussion and coffee afterwards. The talk replaces our usual film this month.

A bit of it about: In response to Derek’s report on damage to his cars others have observed and reported on similar activity. Katy and Aaron of View Road had plants pulled up and thrown all over a neighbour’s car and another house on had their mailbox kicked over. As well, the community garden had a large tamarillo plant broken a few weeks ago; can everyone keep an eye out?

It’s a small world: Reporting on the last issue Oliver says “Cool to see people from University of Minnesota here. My late uncle was a well known language professor there. The world is small.”

Tommy come home: Black cat Tommy is missing from View Road. He has no tail and a blue flea collar. Please ring Rodney  with any sightings.

Reminder: School Quiz Night – 27 June at The Pines starts 7:30 pm – contact Caz to register.

Grant and Norman

Published as Issue No. 72

5 June, 2013

Derek from View Rd had cars parked on the street damaged recently, others suffered the same fate at the same time. He reports: “I’ve not seen any signs of car vandalism before in View Road, and almost no graffiti. I didn’t expect them to catch the vandals but wanted the Police to know about this as part of their information gathering. Constable Patty Little at the Kilbirnie Community Policing Centre has since done a mail drop in View Road offering to help set up a Neighbourhood Support Group. I’m up for that. If anyone else is interested they can contact Constable Little.

TRiG planting and working bee: On Friday Council Ranger Brian Thomas delivered a ute and trailer full of nearly 500 plants from the Council nursery at Berhampore for the Te Raekaihau Park (View Road south headland reserve). Along with 300 plants from the Forest and Bird Nursery already waiting at the road end four members of TRiG and Brian ferried them up the hill to the beacon, where they were stashed ready for planting in the next few weeks. TRiG will begin planting on the 8th of June, 2pm near the Alice Kreb Lodge. If you would like to know more about this please contact Jenny.

Te Kawakawa Commons Working Bee: this Saturday, 9am until afternoon.

US students help out: On Saturday 25 May Houghton Valley School hosted 20 students and their tutors from the University of Minnesota, USA, studying Leadership and Cultural Ecology of New Zealand. As part of their programme they volunteered five hours working on the HVS-Council coastal forest regeneration project. They cleared blackberry for the next stage of the school tree planting programme and upgrading the Haunted Hut track with drains, new bridges and mulch, continuing a tradition of US student volunteers in the valley that now goes back several years.

Grounds improved: On Sunday 26 May about two dozen parents took part in a working bee at the school. As a result there are new fences, repaired playground equipment, additional paths and storage, new landscaping and no pampas grass (a noxious plant). Non parent volunteer are always welcome, contact the school anytime.

Kae Miller Founder’s Day Celebration: On the afternoon of Saturday July 13 the Kae Miller Trust will be hosting a public afternoon, with a headland walk and history tour, tree planting and afternoon tea. More details closer to the time.

Norman and Grant

Missing attachments:

Preview attachment TRiG team and Council unloading plants.jpg

Preview attachment Students at work.jpg

Published as Issue No. 71

22 May, 2013

Working bees coming up:

• TRiG: has a busy programme from now until the end of July including this Saturday from 2 p.m.
• School: This Sunday 10 – 3 pm. Just turn up and you will be given a job from the list.
• Te Kawakawa Commons: Friday May 31 to move Council donated trees up to garden. Call James.

Movie night: A NZ film Our Green Roadie is the film night on Wednesday 29 May at Houghton Valley School at 7.30 pm Emma and Connor Heke travelled the country in a tiny van talking to 50+ New Zealanders committed to a sustainable lifestyle. A real slice of “kiwi can do”. All welcome to join us for film plus coffee and conversation afterwards. More information ring Miranda.

HV School News: Quiz Night. June 27 at The Pines. Fun night, all welcome! Houghton Valley School is holding a quiz night on 27 June 2013 at The Pines to raise money to upgrade/repair the school’s adventure playground. Get a team of 5 together and buy a table for $75. Contact Sarah FQ for tickets  If you want to come but aren’t in a team she will connect you up with others. No door sales.

Can you help? Donations sought for the quiz night raffle and/or winning team’s prize, eg bottles of wine, a box of chocolates, vouchers. If you have a business or know of one that could make a donation, please contact Caroline McGlinchy.

Surplus Lemons, Feijoas, Apples etc? If you have too much home grown fruit in your life Sarah FQ will gladly take them off your hands to make chutneys and other preserves (eg: salt-preserved lemons) to sell at the annual HVS Fair. You get a jar of chutney/preserve to say thanks for your donation(s). Contact Sarah

Radio Found: A black radio mp3 player on forest path by the school. Phone Dave.

Crosscut saw wanted: Under its agreement with the Council the TRiG restoration group is not permitted to use chain saws on this land, which makes removing unwanted karo etc quite a task. If anyone has a two-person crosscut saw they could make available please contact Grant.

Marketplace: Andrea of View Rd reports the newsletter item helped bring local people to the informal opening of her new gallery on Sunday. We’re happy to run buy/sell/swap items for individuals – by locals for locals.

Norman and Grant

Published as Issue No. 70

15 May, 2013

It’s not often there is a local art exhibition, so it seemed to warrant a special edition of the newsletter, for an event this Sunday. You are invited to attend an informal exhibition of recent artworks by local artist, Andrea Selwood. This event is to be held on Sunday 19th May from 2 – 5 pm at 40 View Road, Houghton Bay and is open to the Houghton Valley neighbourhood and community. It celebrates local arts and culture as well as the artist’s completion of a new home studio where the exhibition is held. Whilst this is intended to be a non-profit event, interested buyers can approach the artist to purchase any artworks.

Photo: Light refraction photogram by Andrea Selwood

Published as Issue No. 69

8 May, 2013

Welcome to new newsletter recipient households, 184 and 185.

Proposed community dance: After getting positive feedback for the idea of a community dance Miranda from Hornsey Road would like to go ahead and help organise one in the community hall, around the mid-winter solstice. Preference seems to be for a family affair where there is plenty of quiet time to talk and a great band to dance to. Everyone would bring a plate and non alcoholic drink. Miranda is keen to get a few more people on board so that it can go ahead, ring her  if interested.

On the Buses: On April 30 Christine (Buckley Rd) and Linda (View Rd) attended a follow up meeting about the Wellington City Bus Review held by the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC). Draft timetables were presented for the revised service that will probably be implemented in 2014, at the earliest. See http://www.gw.govt.nz/draft-timetables. [link not current] Provision of the new bus service will be put out for tender later this year and it is possible the successful tenderer may negotiate changes to these proposed timetables therefore they remain draft documents.

The new bus service will provide an increase in service, i.e. more frequent buses, in many suburbs, including Houghton Bay, Melrose and Southgate. [Thanks to the efforts of Christine, Linda and others – Ed.]

An important point to note is that the new service will not be introduced until the ticketing system has been changed to allow for just one fare to be charged for each journey into or out of the city, regardless of whether or not you have to change buses along the way.

GWRC have asked Linda and Christine to coordinate any feedback from the Houghton Bay and Southgate areas so if anyone has any significant issues with the proposed new timetables for the Houghton Bay (Route 23) or Southgate (new Route 29) routes please email those concerns to Christine with ‘Bus Review Feedback’ in the subject line before Friday 14 June 2013.

From the Community Garden: Now is the perfect time to plant broccoli. There are lots of seedlings so if you come on Sunday afternoons, you can get some for your garden.

Cleaning up Houghton Bay: Houghton Bay sediment ‘worse than sewage’, reads an article on the Stuff website five days ago, featuring an interview with John Robinson of Island Bay who is actively involved with Houghton Bay residents looking to clean up leachate from the old tip. See http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/8629822/Houghton-Bay-effluent-causes-a-stink

Grant and Norman

Published as Issue No. 68

24 April, 2013

Partnership with Council: Last year the Kae Miller Trust, which owns and manages the Alice Krebs Lodge on the View Rd/Te Raekaihau Headland Park, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the City Council. The MOU gives the Trust – and implicitly the Houghton Valley community and TriG regeneration group members – guardianship rights for this area. One year on and the Trustees (locals – Brenda, Grant, Jenny and Norman) will meet on May 14th with the Parks & Reserves Dept to review the agreement. The meeting will be held in the Lodge at 3 p.m., ring Grant if you want to know more.

Houghton Valley Website: The last few months has seen considerable effort by Ian of View Rd and Grant designing and building a new Houghton Valley website. Like many of Grant’s activities they have two objectives, building of community resources and work towards his PhD study – “Stewardship: An Ethico-Aesthetic Approach to Uncertain Futures in the Valley of the Wild”. The site will be launched later in the year.

Cleaning up Houghton Bay: The attached document [No attachment], distributed on April 11, summarises the state of play – from the Council’s perspective – in the resident-driven initiative to eliminate what the they describe as “the on-going occurrence of pungent and ‘colourful’ discharges in Houghton Bay.” One recommendation is: the Houghton Valley community be involved in the assessment of the catchment with the possibility of setting up a “care” group within the Community that builds on the work already undertaken.

Norman and Grant

Published as Issue No. 67

10 April, 2013

The Birdman of Hornsey Rd: Peter has had a lifelong interest in New Zealand birds and been banding (ringing) them since the early 1980’s. He is the current holder of the banding permit for the Central Passerine Banding Group based in Wellington. To understand more about this group, and trends in bird populations, go to http://wgtnnzbanders.blogspot.co.nz/. Peter has just produced a summary of our changing bird population and you can join him on his bird netting sessions.

Removal of hazardous trees: Macrocarpa trees at 55 Hungerford Rd will be removed from the road reserve as part of the City Council’s hazardous tree removal programme. Work will commence on Friday 19 April and take four days, weather permitting. Timber recovered will be removed from site and all other wood placed through a large mulching machine. No firewood will be available to the public.

Community Film night: The next film night is Wednesday 17 April 7.30 pm at Houghton Valley School. Seeds of Freedom, narrated by Jeremy Irons, looks at the importance of seed ownership and distribution, especially in relation to the health risks of genetically modified foods. GMO foods are already present in NZ which makes it especially relevant.

Cleaning up Houghton Bay and Lifting the Creek: Three further contributions have been received, and Jenny from Houghton Bay Rd has created an interesting map to show her ideas about the creek and the wetland. She hopes this inspires others to draw their ideas for the next newsletter.

John: “George and I, as Wellington residents who use the south coast a lot, started pushing for action on leachate coming across Houghton Bay in the middle of last year. It was difficult to get information out of WCC but we persevered; now have a pretty good understanding and have linked up with Houghton Valley residents.

Basically, both fresh water from side streams and leachate from ground water flow through the old tip and mix as it is collected coming down the valley. When there is very little flow this goes into the sewer system. With only a little rain the flow passes over a weir and down across the beach. Capacity last year had no plan to solve the problem.

An obvious idea, held by residents and now discussed with Council staff, is to keep the fresh water and the leachate separate in two different flows down the valley. Fresh water can then be taken to Houghton Bay while leachate can go into the sewer system without the added flow of fresh water pushing it over the weir.

The fresh water may then flow through wetlands and there is considerable support for this provided the idea is feasible. However it should be noted that the main problem is the leachate and the alternative idea of a pipe all down the valley and across the beach could work without the wetlands. That said, a push for a wetlands would put the issue more firmly on the agenda and we support this.”

Clarification: “There is uncertainty in people’s minds whether the leachate and fresh water are separate as they come down the valley. They are not. I asked this of Maria Charry (Capacity) when a small group met at the playground and she explained that all water is collected and mixed from the top of the valley down, being brought in the one main pipe down the valley. Any idea of a new jumping weir system above Jacob’s place is not then feasible. The solution requires separate systems all the way down the valley.”

Grant commented: “The point about the mixing of the fresh water with the leachate: Maria’s explanation is only partially correct. We have carried out ground truthing research and discovered that there are seven open streams feeding fresh spring water into the leachate pipe all year round. The first is at Jacob’s place (Haewai Meadery) with the others within 200 metres (north). The close proximity of these open streams means that the idea proposed by Jenny is feasible i.e. that an open channel is created along the side to the western hill face to capture much of the fresh water before it goes into the leachate.

This would be stage one of the project. Stage two could be to continue the channel northwards up to Buckley Rd in order to capture the ephemeral streams. There is also water coming into the pipe from the eastern side and solutions to separating this are probably more complicated.”

John responded: “Agree wholeheartedly. There remains the question of just how much of the water flow is in those lower streams; I understand that quite a lot comes in higher up. If we push on, as with this debate, Capacity may get active, measure of all the flows and produce a realistic plan. So far too much of the information is coming from locals, and Capacity have a job to do.”

Marine Education Centre at bottom of Hungerford Rd: Victor Anderlini the principal champion of the earlier initiative and this revised proposal featured in the Dominion-Post recently. From the interview:

Question: Have you met any local resistance to the exploration centre plans as you did with previous proposals at Te Raekaihau Pt? Answer: No. A lot of people who were objectors … are now fully supportive of the new site.

Published as Issue No. 66

27 March, 2013

Cleaning up Houghton Bay and Lifting the Creek: Comments have been received following the articles in Newsletter 65. Other input welcomed.

David from Cave Rd: “I am fully in favour of finding a solution to the leachate pollution in Houghton Bay. The chemical look and smell on the beach is often disgusting. However, I am opposed to the further development of a wetland in the bottom park of the Buckley Road Reserve (that is, the grassed area between the children’s playground and the houses south of the reserve). This park is the nearest green space for people who live in the southern part of Houghton Bay and, because of the trees beside the road, one of the most attractive green spaces in the reserve.

For people with a disability, as I have had for the past year, it is one of the few accessible recreational spaces in the lower valley. It is also very close to a children’s playground. Children often run down the slope into the park, sometimes without parental supervision. Would it be safe to establish an open creek and possibly a full wetland in such an area? I am concerned that the opinion of people who live below the park, who are most likely to be affected by any changes, are so far not being actively sought by the Council. Therefore, I am grateful for the opportunity to present my views in our newsletter.”

Jenny from Hungerford Rd: “We are still trying to find out what is possible and how it could work. The following is my idea of how it might be: The fields above the playground are rarely used, difficult to access, not very interesting and boggy due to poor drainage. A stream channel for drainage and planting would create a sense of place for these rather forlorn patches. We could then create a walking track linking the fields. Near the playground it may be simpler to pipe the water, but in the lower area there is enough space to incorporate a wetland without losing all the grass. It could be broken into a couple of areas with trees and wetland expanding in the middle.

Essentially there is a wetland there now, and an open stream – the planting around has made it safe enough right next to the playground. A purpose built wetland would be bigger, but not take up the whole space. It would not be more than ankle deep, and overflows can ensure this during heavy rain. There would need to be more containment (i.e. a basin) so that excess water can be held in case of flooding. Planting would help keep younger children from getting near the water; older children would enjoy it! The wetland could have a boardwalk and a track through the bush on the far side made at a grade suitable for disabled access.”

What happened to the Bees?: Despite a special issue of the Newsletter and resultant publicity in other media, Jacob of Haewai Meadery has not yet found the bee swarm he brought back from Otaki to join his own hives. Dave from Houghton Valley Rd, who fits in the role of caretaker at the school around his many other activities, commented – Last Thursday five children at school were stung by wasps and a search soon revealed a nest sited near the slide. It is now eradicated. This forms a reminder it is now wasp season and we should walk around our valley with care, especially if going off the tracks. The summer days and plentiful supplies of fruit such as blackberries provide wasps with ideal breeding conditions. It is also still the season when bee swarms can occur. In general a bee swarm will not hurt you. They are a good sign. Just keep out of their way, observe where the bees settle and ring Jacob or Dave, who will endeavour to ensure they are cared for.

Marine Centre: Huib of View Rd commented on a regional issue in our backyard: “I read that the Te Moana trust have resurrected plans for an aquarium on the south coast, targeting land at the base of Hungerford Road. I haven’t seen plans myself but clearly a huge commercial project ($36 million) of this size would have a massive impact on the surrounding community. I thought it might be good to bring it to the attention of the Houghton Valley community and am interested in other resident’s thoughts.”

See http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/8443647/Lyall-Bay-aquarium-plans-unveiled

Broccoli seedlings: These are available from the community garden over the next few weeks. Come down on Sunday afternoons to collect yours; free cup of tea at 3.30 pm with seedlings (gold coin donation if you insist).

Fires on Te Raekaihau Headland: Geoff from Buckley Rd spotted smoke coming from the headland last week and rang the fire brigade. It seems that some people lit a fire in the picnic area in front of Piebe’s Seat. If anyone sees any smoke coming from this area, please call the brigade.

Norman and Grant

Published as Issue No. 65

13 March, 2013

Cleaning up Houghton Bay and Lifting the Creek: Cleaning up the leachate pollution in Houghton Bay by preventing water from runoff and springs going into the large drainage pipe carrying the former creek down Houghton Valley is under consideration. Local, Jenny from Hungerford Road, staff members from Capacity (the Council owned organisation responsible for water supply and drainage) and Island Bay scientist John Robinson, met on site on Monday to consider the next stage of a feasibility study for this ambitious project.

Jenny has provided the report below; further information attached is from John Robinson, Paul Glennie from Capacity and Ian of Buckley Rd. Grant from Hungerford Rd has created this visual, which shows the idea of capturing clean water run-off in an open channel to avoid it going into the pipe and adding greatly to the volume of polluted water in Houghton Bay.

Various ideas are being explored and others sought. We will be happy to publish comments in the next newsletter.

Regards, Grant and Norman

Jenny wrote: “The top priority for the Council is to prevent the leachate contamination of Houghton Bay. However, Houghton Valley residents want any solutions to this problem to work towards an ideal rather than just a quick fix. Ideally, the tip leachate needs to be permanently directed to the sewer system, and the storm water and fresh water to the beach and sea. Possibly the fixing of the leachate problem will not be fully accomplished without addressing the separation of storm and spring water all the way up the valley, but any steps taken should have a sustainable end point in mind.

If we build a new jumping weir system above Jacob’s place, then at that point the low flow contaminated water could be directed to the sewer system. The current leachate pipe below this point could then be cleaned out and converted to a storm water and overland water system only, which ends up at the beach. The wetland would act as the changeover point. This would keep all the storm water system below the current weir intact and save digging any new pipes (and wrecking the new roundabout!!)

Then, for (hopefully a brief) interim, the high flow could be directed into the larger pipe as currently happens.. Then above Jacob’s place, work could begin on reducing the storm and spring water influx into the leachate pipe by separating them out – creating the wetland and running the clean water overland in a stream channel, working progressively up the valley. (But if the piped runoff system can be devised to cope with untoward water events, then a wetland may not be necessary, and thus save some costs.) The new weir system could monitor the amount of high flow events and as the storm water load is reduced there would eventually be a tipping point where the leachate would be going permanently into the sewer.

Whether this stops the mystery discharges I don’t know, but if we can at least get the spring water above ground and then going down the pipe to the beach, it may keep the pipe clean and not build up any contaminants to create the concentrated discharges.”

Attachments missing:

Stormwater discharge issues.pdf

Further background Information and other comments and perspectives.doc

Published as Issue No. 64

27 February[??], 2013

Bus Service Review: As part of their advocacy on behalf of local people, late last year Christine, Linda and Miranda attended a further meeting with Metlink on the proposed changes to the bus network. Linda has taken the time to put together an update of the changes as they affect Houghton Valley and Southgate services. [No attachment]