There have been a number of prosecutions in the Waikato by the Waikato Regional Council (WRC). A farmer in central Waikato, Bas Nelis, cleared what he thought was a drain – privet and willows, just rubbish. WRC flew into action and termed the offending ditch a stream, but could not identify which; drain or stream.
Six people arrived, one police officer, two enforcement officers, ex-senior detectives employed by WRC and others. Bas Nelis was of course fined by Judge Melanie Harland and as expected, Patrick Lynch went into overdrive quote: ‘discharging into the river without sediment control, negatively affects plants, invertebrates, fish, water quality and aesthetics’..
Why did not Patrick Lynch put sediment control on all the Coromandel streams and stop all these slips in this January flood? The court levied more penalties against the contractor Bas employed. Then another Contractor ‘Jacobsen Contracting’ at Paeroa cleaning farm drains, was pimped on by a motorist. This time Judge Geoff Smith trots out the usual blast of ‘damage to wetland and the Ohinemuri River.’ In these cases WRA has seemed over eager, over the top ridiculous, and of course, incompetent.
I talked to Jacobsen and he was quite unconcerned, “I was insured and paid the fine,” he said. There were other similar attacks, one at Maungatarata, another at Athenree.
I have photos of the flood in April 1978 which hit hard from Matamata all the way to Cape Colville. A private rain gauge on the east side of the range between Waihi and Whangamata recorded 30 inches of rain!! The photos show that even if all the contractors had a thousand bulldozers, they could not have created the havoc that nature wrought over a five-day period.
Another isolated deluge in February 1985 over Te Aroha almost washed the town away. Lives were lost unfortunately. What happened there was remarkably similar to the tragedy at Mt Manganui a few weeks ago. There is nothing our population can physically do with deluges pouring off mountain sides, as steep as church roofs. However, there is plenty that can be done on the flood plains and undulating lower lying land.
It is critical to keep the drains flowing. It does not matter whether it is your kitchen sink or local stream, it must flow freely. Everyone knows ‘it is incredibly easy to make simple matter complicated’ especially in this day and age, when common sense has been abolished by the RMA. You know we had round mouth shovels, then steam shovels, draglines, hydraulic diggers and they all worked fine until we ran into the brick wall of the RMA, WRC, Patrick Lynch and add in DOC and the Environment Court. Do you ever wonder why you go to work at all?
