Cooks Beach has cause for celebration – the grass carp for their two lakes have been approved. Don’t pop the corks yet though. There is still the matter of containment screens that have to be built (commissioned by TCDC) and approved by DOC and then installed.
Radio CFM published a good article on their Facebook page by Justin Tuberan re the approval of the grass carp which highlighted the delays by both Council, TCDC staff, and disagreement from Ngati Hei.
It gave cause for admonishing the role of the council and some staff processes and also had a stern word for central government.
Excerpt – “Councillor John Grant agreed, saying the journey highlights the extremely convoluted systems councils have to work through to get multiple parties to complete consultation processes and sign off approval.” He also added, “This is a great example of what the government needs to fix.”
Then there is the Press Release from TCDC – informative and positive. Some of it is included here:-
“The Department of Conservation has approved a release of grass carp, also known as white amur (Ctenopharyngodon idella), to help manage overabundant native vegetation growth in the two stormwater lakes at Cooks Beach.
“The Cooks Beach lakes systems are man-made lakes that form part of the Thames-Coromandel District Council’s stormwater network. In recent years, the lakes have experienced increased aquatic plant growth.
“The release of grass carp follows years of lobbying from local residents and ratepayers to the Council for grass carp to help manage vegetation growth.
Council had previously tried various vegetation removal methods at the lakes, including mechanical weed harvesters and targeted herbicides, but these were not effective.”
I guess the Cooks Beach residents should be very grateful – after all the carp are coming.
It is commendable the Press Releases by CFM and TCDC share accuracies.
However, TCDC’s does not admit they held up the process, – just refer to locals, who had to lobby for years.
CFM’s Press Release does not include the three years of delay before the 2026 delays which Councillor Grant refers to as, “The extremely convoluted systems that councils have to work through.” He states that the government will need to fix this. This simply does not apply.
Council through the Community Board was presented with a very thorough researched paper regarding the grass carp in 2022 by representatives of the Cooks Beach community. It was received by the Community Board and the staff were asked to investigate it.
A consultancy firm was engaged to investigate the grass carp proposal. The local representatives were not consulted in terms of the brief given to the consultancy by council staff and did not get back to the local community who waited almost a year before they began to agitate for some response to their proposal.
The consultant finally presented a report on the wrong species of carp (koi carp, not grass carp) and at the meeting where they presented their findings which were totally off mark, the shocked local representatives were forbidden to ask questions.
From then on there was stonewalling and delays plus bad decisions by staff with mechanical weed harvesters that could not cope with the weed congesting the lakes.
The Cooks Beach team, though upset and frustrated, kept on. They organised a meeting at Cooks Beach to which staff, councillors and community members came to listen to a national expert on grass carp who had worked with other councils successfully in managing weed culture in lakes.
The presentation was excellent, professional and totally supported the local grass carp proposal. The result:-no correcting directive from Councillors to staff and no action but more stonewalling and delaying.
Tell me where in all of this did the council HAVE to work through convoluted processes set down by the RMA or central government?
Nowhere – just a stubborn following of an ideology of some staff. The costs of the misguided consultancy, the three years of delays re communication and overspend on weed cuttings were not necessary. There was a culture that disregarded the value, wisdom and work of the local people.
Let’s accept responsibility for where it lies.
One further important point is revealed by the CFM report.
There does not seem to be any occasion whereby the local representatives, council staff, DOC and iwi ever talked around the one table. There is a dance going on – DoC talks to Iwi; Council talks to DoC; Council or Community Board talks to the local representatives, Council talks to DoC: DoC talks to iwi.
For the sake of the future, this has to change. We are one people and we have one environment, and the huge cost comes from the people’s pockets and achieves little, especially in terms of trust and relationships with the stake holders and the huge delays that result.
“I am surprised that as reported the application was approved by Doc on 19th August. We just need the security screens in place before the fish can be released, hopefully that shouldn’t take too long!” – Steve Lloyd, project coordinator.
“The council hasn’t kept up as far as [up] keeping lake B which is consequently full of nutrients. The nutrients drive the weed growth and it’s a never ending saga really.” – Mercury Bay South Ratepayers Association Chairman, Paul Hopkins.
“There is a very low risk of the fish breeding in this environment, but even so, a condition of the permission requires monitoring after flood events to check if any grass carp escape”. – Press release DoC Acting Regional Manager, Graham Kimber.
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