PO Box 57034 Mana
Porirua 5247
www.gopi.wellington.net.nz
pauainlet@gmail.com

From the Chairperson

This is an appeal for vigilance. Recently I was approached by some residents concerned about mud being discharged into the Inlet from erosion incidents. In one case sediment from a major housing development in Whitby has deposited considerable quantities of clay in the stream bed that runs beside a group of houses. Not only is this unsightly for the affected residents, but it will certainly wash down into the Inlet eventually. The developer’s sediment retention practices appear inadequate. The other report was of the continual erosion of a bank alongside a walkway after vegetation interfering with a high voltage power line had been removed . Clay was being washed into a drain that empties into the Inlet. The City Council had built an inadequate retaining wall.

In both cases the residents were dissatisfied with the response by the Councils to their concerns and asked us to help get a more satisfactory outcome. We have taken up their concerns with Council officials. The retaining wall has been improved and the Regional Council believe they have satisfactorily resolved the mud flow problem. We now wait for a significant rainfall to test these outcomes. We will monitor the situation and continue to press the Councils for further action where appropriate.

My point in raising this here is to ask all of you to be vigilant about such incidents and report them to the City and Regional Councils — as well as to the GOPI secretary (see our contact details in the box at end of this Newsletter). Our aim must be to protect the Inlet from all sources of non-natural erosion. Even small or seemingly trivial incidents are important. Their minor effects will eventually accumulate into something significant.

OUR SUBMISSION ON THE PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ACT

The Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill 2009 is possibly the most significant thing to come our way in a long time . While we must support the Bill’s intention to simplify and streamline the application, hearings and appeals processes of the RMA, we can’t support changes that impinge on our ability to make known our concerns about resource consent applications. Unfortunately, the time allowed to respond to the Bill was too short for us to ask for your views but we hope you will agree with the points we raised. You can read a summary on the next page and see the full submission on our website, www.gopi.wellington.net.nz.

Guardians of Pauatahanui Inlet Inc. (GOPI) considers this Bill shifts the balance of the Resource Management Act (RMA) away from environmental protection and severely reduces the oppportunity for community participation in decision-making about the environment in which we live.

There are a number of proposed changes in the Bill that will restrict public participation and/or reduce the quality of decision-making under the RMA. These include:

• removing the presumption in favour of notifying resource consent applications and changing the criteria for public notification
• allowing the Environment Court to require security for costs
• limiting appeals on policy statements and plans to questions of law (except with the leave of the Environment Court)
• allowing applicants, with the agreement of the council, to have their application heard by the Environment Court in the first instance (direct referral)
• deleting non-complying activities
• removing the Minister of Conservation's decision-making role in respect of restricted coastal activities
• removing the ability to lodge further submissions in the planning process
• preventing rules in plans from having any effect until decisions on the rules have been notified.

GOPI opposes these provisions in the Bill.

On the other hand the Bill proposes:

• increasing the flexibility and scope of enforcement powers and responsibilities
• raising the maximum fine for committing an offence
• giving the Environment Court powers to direct a review of a resource consent where it is connected to an offence that has been committed
• removing the provisions of the Act that protect the Crown from enforcement action.

GOPI supports these provisions in the Bill.

ANOTHER EXCELLENT PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITION

The total of 353 prints from 69 entrants, including six entries each in both the Junior and Youth sections, confirms the continuing success of the competition. The judge commented on the high overall quality of the entries. He remarked that a lot of images were well thought out and that a number of people had gone to some effort to make new and interesting images.

Prize winning entries and those ranked highly commended were displayed in Whitby Mall, the Library at Pataka and Palmers Lifestyle Centre, Plimmerton. We were pleased to see the display attracting visitors immediately it was put together. Prize winning entries will shortly be posted on the photo competition page of our website. Congratulations to all the winners and a big thank you to the photo competition committee of Ian Thompson, Ken Rae and Priscilla Isaacs.

Our thanks for the generous sponsorship from local businesses and from the Creative Communities fund of the Porirua City Council. Without this continued support the competition would not be possible.

KEITH CALDER WILL SPEAK AT OUR AGM

The AGM will be held on Thursday, June 25 at 7.30 p.m. in the Bradey Room (next door to the Library at the Whitby shopping centre). You are warmly invited to come along and bring others with you - members and the general public are all welcome. Our speaker this year is Keith Calder, the Porirua Harbour Strategy Coordinator. He will update us on the progress of the programme and its implications for the health of the Inlet. We’re confident that Keith’s discussion will be of interest to all.

Each year we seek to import new faces to the committee. If you would like to join the committee phone the Chairperson, John Wells, at 234-1788 for more information, or simply for a chat. Nominations can be made from the floor at the AGM.

WEBSITE REVIEW

Do you have website skills and a small amount of spare time? Can you help occasionally on design or technical questions related to our website? We currently use Dreamweaver, but our redesigned website probably will use a content management system, possibly an open source programme such as Joomla. We're looking forward to these new developments and our webmaster, Beverly Fairfax, invites anyone who can help to get in touch with her via our email or postal addresses.

OUR POLICY ON THE TRANSMISSION GULLY MOTORWAY

As you no doubt will have seen or heard from the news media, the Transmission Gully vs Coastal Highway upgrade debate has recently resurfaced. It may be timely to note that GOPI policy is a strong preference for TGM as this would offer better protection for the Inlet. The full policy statement is appended to this newsletter.

EMERGENCY NUMBERS FOR THE PAUATAHANUI INLET

Pollution : Discharges of contaminants to air, land, stormwater drains, streams, rivers or sea and for after hours consent enquiries - ring Greater Wellington 0800 496 734 (24 hours)

Boating infringements : Greater Wellington 384 5708 (24 hours)

Fisheries issues : Ministry of Fisheries 0800 476 224 (24 hours)

Pauatahanui Wildlife Reserve : Department of Conservation 0800 362 468

Let us know what you have reported so we can keep an accurate record and follow up if necessary - 233 9614 (Ken Rae, Secretary, GOPI) or pauainlet@gmail.com.

GUARDIANS OF PAUATAHANUI INLET

Roading Policy

The northern route from Wellington City to the Kapiti Coast via State Highway 1 can no longer adequately deal with daily traffic flows and the Government intends to increase traffic capacity through new road construction. Two alternatives are being proposed: extending the existing coastal route between Mana and Raumati and building an entirely new motorway through Transmission Gully.

Any upgrade of the coastal route will increase road traffic around the Inlet and require current roads, especially SH 1, SH 58 and Grays Road, to be upgraded. We oppose any such upgrading. Roading around the Inlet has already altered the natural character and ecological values of the Inlet and its margins and continues to provide increasingly adverse consequences for the Inlet’s ecological and recreational values. Further upgrading will lead to greater adverse effects. Grays Road in particular is located along a highly sensitive part of the estuary and upgrading this road, especially straightening it, will significantly degrade the ecological values of the entire Inlet.

The Transmission Gully Motorway (TGM) will be the main route from the Kapiti Coast to Porirua, Wellington and the Hutt Valley. It will direct traffic away from the immediate environs of the Inlet.

We believe that TGM has greater potential for reducing the negative impact of roads on the environment of the Inlet than the upgrading of the coastal route.

Contact us

Please email your comments and questions about this policy or write to the Chairperson, Guardians of Pauatahanui Inlet, PO Box 37034, Mana, Porirua 5247, New Zealand.

 Inlet ecology

Roads ring much of the Inlet shoreline. These roads have considerably damaged the natural character and ecology of the Inlet. Large areas of salt marsh and adjoining freshwater wetland have been cut off from the Inlet and many of these areas have subsequently been drained. Wetlands (salt marsh and freshwater) are highly productive ecosystems and provide habitat for a wide variety of plant and animal species. They are also nursery areas for a number of fish species. The organic debris that results from natural death and decay of wetland plants directly or indirectly provides at least 60% of the food requirements of the estuarine fauna. The loss of wetlands around the Inlet margin over the years has had a significant impact on the ecology of the Inlet and an even greater impact on the Onepoto Arm of the harbour.

Much of this loss has been caused by the construction of road and rail transport corridors. Also, although there are no firm figures on the extent of their influence, there can be no doubt that they have altered the tidal flushing pattern of the harbour. This in turn is continuing to affect the distribution and extent of some intertidal sand banks. The construction of a second road bridge over the mouth of the Inlet is the latest structure built without adequate research or forethought as to its effect on the Inlet.

Last updated: Sunday, July 26, 2009