Lifting the Creek

As part of the COVID-19 recovery, the government created the Jobs for Nature programme to manage funding across multiple government agencies to benefit the environment, people and regions. One of these agencies was the Freshwater Improvement Fund, which supports the management of New Zealand lakes, rivers, streams, groundwater and wetlands.

In February 2021, locals made an application to the Freshwater Improvement Fund. It was to try and raise funds towards the Lifting the Creek project, but was in essence more of a way of getting the project out there than with any real expectation of it being accepted.

One of the outcomes of the FIF application was that we realised that we knew very little about how to turn the project into a series of practical steps with appropriate costings. Still it was a useful exercise, and the results were surprisingly gratifying. Here is an excerpt from the reply letter

“The applications the panel considered successful were those that best addressed the management of freshwater bodies considered vulnerable, demonstrated improvement in the values and benefits derived from the freshwater body and contributed to the recovery from COVID-19 through generating employment. The projects also demonstrated their ability to leverage other funding, their support from partner organisations and capability do deliver a successful project.

In August 2023, the Houghton Valley Progressive Association revived the Lifting the Creek project and organised a workshop called Te Mauri O Te Wai in Haewai / Houghton Valley.

After being knocked back with getting this project up and running several times, the idea behind the workshop was to get beyond the impasse of authorities and local officials not doing anything because there is always something more urgent to fix or not enough money, despite being very supportive when we suggest what could be done to fix the problem.

We wanted to discuss what we know and would like to do, so that we could develop a brief for the project. Getting everything we know out of people’s head and into an inspiring document would be an essential first step towards creating a brief. From a brief could come a concept plan and then a developed design plan. We also wanted to work out how we could engage with authorities so that they could help us to advance the project, rather than expect them to do so. In other words – collaboration.

Along with 14 interested locals, the workshop was attended by Julie Anne Genter of the Green Party and Yadana Saw of Greater Wellington Regional Council. Julie Anne said that if the Green Party get into government, they will specifically set aside $100 million for projects such as ours, estimating that ours would be about $10 million. There was a possibility of getting a mention in an article in The Post about this policy, but if it was published it wasn’t obvious. Yadana suggested we contact our Ward Councillors and ask them to put the project into the Long Term Plan, and that WCC had a ‘Petition’ system that forced the Council to look at any approved request with over 20 signatures. One of the locals suggested contacting engineers who had a community ‘give-back’ system to provide some advice towards the concept plan.

In following up with WCC, Cr Tim Brown said that they had been discussing the project but it sounded like they were nowhere near ready to commit money to it. Hence our original plan of working through the preliminary design solutions to create a workable solution for them, rather than waiting, is more relevant than ever.

After the workshop we created a document: Te Mauri o Te Wai Haewai. This included the suggestions that came out of it as a first step towards a brief. We also planned another Creek Walk for November, as a follow up.

We finally decided to submit a petition to WCC in November 2023, with no idea of what we were letting ourselves in for. We only knew that it had to be done. In fact it was the beginning of quite a journey, and a real breakthrough in getting something started. We only needed 20 signatures and got 237. Many signatures were from people outside the suburb, which showed us how important it is to visitors, including the surfers who come from elsewhere.

The WCC Petition

WCC’s petition process only allows a small amount of text even though you can provide as much as you like in website links, which we certainly did. However, we would like to record what we would have preferred to have asked the Council as it includes important decisions we made about the process going forward:

We, the undersigned, request that Wellington City Council put the following project into the 2024-2034 Long Term Plan.

“The remediation of the closed landfill in Haewai / Houghton Bay in order to: 

• Reduce the leachate contamination of Taputeranga Marine Reserve and Haewai / Houghton Bay Beach; 
• Eliminate strong hydrocarbon odours from our stormwater drains contaminating residents’ homes; 
• Divert fresh overland, storm and spring water away from becoming contaminated with leachate in the current under-landfill stormwater system; 
• Create a new natural stormwater management system that provides and complements a natural habitat for our non-human residents; provides an engaging space for recreation; and enables food gathering (mahinga kai, rongoa forests) and water gathering (fresh water springs).” 

This project has been called by the local residents as ‘Lifting the Creek’, and is not only an environmental restoration project, but a project that is bringing the community, and will bring the creek back to life. As we prepare for an uncertain future, this project will continue to revitalise the community and the environment over the next decades, just as the 20+ years of rubbish tip slowly destroyed the community.

We are fully aware that this project will take time and require a large amount of funding, but we know that this project can be done in stages. These stages include:

• Stage 1: Development of a design brief for the entire catchment. The concept design already created by the community would be the starting point for the development of a detailed design brief through a collaboration of Houghton Bay residents, Mana Whenua, WCC staff and outside design consultants;
• Stage 2: Construction planning and implementation for the first section of the project, with community involvement;
• Stage 3 +: Further sections undertaken as funds permit.

We request that WCC commit at least to the first two stages of this project for the 2024-2034 Long Term Plan, as further sections can be added to subsequent Long Term Plans as funds permit. Also, with a clear pathway forward, there will be an increase in potential for obtaining funding from Regional, National and even International agencies.

Presenting the Petition

Wellington City Council asked us to present our petition to the Environment and Infrastructure Committee meeting on 1 February. Our aim was to request enough funding to commission an overall plan for the catchment, and to have a say in the choosing of a consultant who would work with us to achieve a solution that would respect and enhance our natural environment.

However, it ended up more complicated than that, as we discovered that Houghton Valley landfill had finally got to the top of the priorities list and that there was already a $7 million proposal to reline the pipes to keep the stormwater from being contaminated by the landfill leachate. A report had also been commissioned to see what obligations WCC had under the changes to the Natural Resources Plan.

So we had to defend our solution as being a better option than the pipeline proposal, which was not so difficult in the end with some helpful advice from Stu Farrant, a water engineer with Morphum Environmental. The relining proposal was coming from the standpoint that leachate gets into the pipe during heavy rain and is flushed out to sea. Our standpoint was that if the pipes are sealed the leachate accumulates and follows the bedrock down to the sea anyway.

Deputy Mayor Laurie Foon proposed an amendment at the meeting, for the WCC Officers to:

• Provide clarification on what the proposal of the pipe fix will do to the accumulating leachate in the landfill;
• After the commissioned report has been received to report on the level of community engagement required and if there is an ecological option that can be progressed.

The amendment was voted on unanimously, an encouraging sign.

Long term plan presentations

We were hoping that not only would WCC not go for the pipe lining solution, but that they would put the earmarked $7 million into the Long Term Plan for a more ecological solution. We planned to submit to their Long Term Plan to that effect and did so. However, from what what we can see, the money was quietly dropped altogether. Too many higher priorities!

However in the meantime Yadana Saw had encouraged us to make a Presentation to GWRC to fund a catchment plan. Stu Farrant again helped us with technical knowledge and spoke at the presentation. The GWRC Councillors were impressed and encouraged us to submit to their Long Term Plan. We asked the community to help with extra submissions. And the upshot was the Greater Wellington Regional Council’s Long Term Plan included $50,000:

“To support a Houghton Valley / Haewai Catchment co-design process with Mana Whenua, the community, Wellington City Council and Wellington Water Limited, to remediate issues with the stream through a former landfill.”

Hurrah! We are now working on the process going forward.