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.