new auckland

Marine reserve pollution within rules

Widespread pollution of a marine reserve from a North Shore housing development is within planning rules - but will be part of a review of Auckland's Unitary Plan for deficiencies in protecting the environment.

Auckland Council has declared repeated dumps of soil sediment from a Weiti-Okura housing project into the Long Bay Marine Reserve after heavy rain meet the planning conditions imposed on the developer by the Environment Court.

A report from its officials claimed "erosion controls... are achieving high levels of effectiveness".

Despite calls to intervene to stop the flow of soil into the marine reserve, the council believed any extra action to stop the problem would see it taken to court and tied up in legal costs. "There are no legal grounds to cancel or review any existing consent."

The do-nothing conclusion has angered some councillors at an environment committee meeting, and frustrated marine reserve advocates.

The committee chair, councillor Penny Hulse, said the issue had raised concerns about how the much-praised Unitary Plan - which brought together all old planning documents from previous local authorities - would be able to prevent future incidents of the type.

She conceded the plan was pushed through in a political climate of "get housing built" and its "not exactly the most gentle" environmental protections needed review. "The Unitary Plan ain't perfect."

Her committee has charged the council's staff with another report, a region-wide assessment of risks of soil erosion into the Hauraki Gulf and other waterways to scope what change might be needed.

Mike Lee, a councillor who previously chaired the Auckland Regional Council when it had environmental protection responsibilities, said the Auckland Council's failure to act over the pollution was a sad day for the region. The council was not only empowered to act but obliged to do so. Taking no action was "defending the indefensible", and damaged the council's reputation.

Another councillor, John Watson, said if the council's response was to do nothing about the Weiti pollution and simply review its plan, that was akin to doctors saying: "The patient is going to die but got all the prescriptions. It does not confront the real urgency that is required."

Watson, who represents the North Shore's Albany ward, said there would be nothing to stop further run-off from the housing site at the next big rainfall - and into an area that had high supposedly had high environmental protection, the "Rolls Royce" of protected waters. "The business-as-usual model is clearly not sufficient here."

The second Albany councillor, Wayne Walker, said after vising the Weiti site he believed it did not meet the tests over "adverse effects" on the environment.

"Every time there is a storm event we have significant quantities of soil moving into the marine environment and into the marine reserve. We have a responsibility - we have kaitiakitanga - around this and we need to take that responsibility and take it urgently."

Hulse argued the council's hands were tied but had held seven meetings with community advocates over the pollution. Lee interjected: "We are very good at meetings. It's action that the people want."

She said of Watson's hospital patient analogy: "We are taking that patient before it is completely terminal, and reviewing the diagnosis. What we are saying is 'doing what we have always been doing might not be the right thing'. We are looking at a fundamental step-change here."

Councillor Linda Cooper, who chairs the regulatory committee, said if Auckland Council 'slapped abatement notices on it, we would be challenged. If we are going to court, we would be stuck in court for years."

Working with the local residents and developer to try to lessen the risks was a collaborative approach that had a better chance of improving things.

The officials' report to the committee said of the proposed further review: "At a regional level, staff have been working across disciplines and departments to consider possible alternative approaches to reducing sediment flow into Auckland's coastal environments, and it is recommended that we formally report options to the committee by the end of the calendar year."

It claimed the bulk earthworks at the Weiti housing development would soon come to a close, but Watson said a further 400 sites were yet to go into the project, with 170 of those soon.

The project is by Williams Land Ltd. Its failures to stop the sediment flowing into the surrounding coast, including the marine reserve, have been the subject of lobbying by the Long Bay Okura Great Park Society community group.

The society claims there have been high levels of non-compliance with the planning rules for the site, but the council report said many of those issues were simply noted as having potential for minor effects on the environment.

Where the society claimed there had been high "die-off" of cockles in the Okura estuary, testing by the Ministry for Primary Industries had been inconclusive.

On the wider issue of soil erosion into Auckland waters, the report notes water quality is a "key focus" of the Auckland Plan 2050 and Long-term Plan 2018-28. It said: "The question is whether or not the existing conditions and controls normally imposed on land uses requiring consent for earthwork activities are 'good enough when it comes to the impact on the environment and the long-term health of ecosystems?"