The lake wasn’t too large; the dam was sufficient but not drowning all the valley. It had become a place of leisure, education, community play and also energy and irrigation production.
The drought of recent years; the need for combining resources, the motion of rainfall, storing it and treating it for times of both scarcity and plenty are all challenges before us. In addition, using water for energy generation and paying for water are to be added.
This visit to the very peasant Queensland dam and its lake prompted me to make a mini video raising some of these water matters and upload it to Facebook (now on The Coromandel’s Informers Facebook).
The visit also stimulated a lot of thinking and reading about what has been sent to The Informer over the past two years.
Mayor Len Salt’s response to the Facebook video is a most constructive, and hopeful statement on the subject and it is very encouraging to know that it is on the current agenda in terms of the next Long Term Planning period.
The statement connects with a brief conversation The Informer had with the Mayor some months back.
“We are working on it,” Len said, and I am confident that ratepayers can be assured that this is not recent thinking, but has been sitting with Len and local government for some time and was important enough to Len for him to establish the Residents and Ratepayers in Whitianga before he was elected as Mayor – a means to get conversations and action going on water storage certainty and high capacity water treatment.
Mayor Len’s statement on Facebook
I started working on this four years ago, led and inspired by one of our extremely dedicated committee members who prefers to stay behind the scenes.
It was the key reason for establishing the Whitianga Residents and Ratepayers Association. This came about as a result of the 2019/20 drought which devastated Whitianga. Remember the griselina hedges on the bypass before the Joan Gaskell roundabout? All gone.
Remember the three kauri trees on the mound above the Whitianga sign? All died from lack of water.
Significant work has already been done on looking at options for a water supply, including consultation with Leigh Hopper and leading businesses in Whitianga. Council is due to be considering the next stages of the proposed ideas shortly. Whatever options are considered, will still need funding and possibly some creative thinking around mixed use options. There is lots of work still to do, and it’s well advanced, but not yet at the stage where we can take some information to communities.
Mercury Bay Councillors and Community Board members as well as senior council staff all got behind the project at the time, which got it this far. This was, and is, a great example of constructive and collaborative working between the Residents and Ratepayers Association and Council.
Let’s hope we can continue that model.
The next steps will be continued preparation until we are ready to bring something to the Long Term Plan for the 2027/30 period. Communities will be asked for input well before then, but that’s where the funding decisions will be made.
Nothing in Local Government works quickly which is why long-term strategic thinking is so important.
It had become a place of leisure, education, community play and also energy and irrigation production.
