Something smells - Pooh, what
stinks? – Northern Advocate - 14 November 2008
Pooh, what
stinks?
Well I felt
like I was reading an edition from the late 1980s when the headlines of
Tuesdays Northern Advocate repeat ‘Raw Sewerage dumped into your Harbour’.
Not the
greatest of news to tell the world but it is a fact and Whangarei still has the
same old problem.
I was one of
the twenty odd that attended the meeting at Forum North on 17th
December 2007 at 1000hrs, the week prior to Christmas, when we learnt of how
long the previous Councils had been investigating the problems. There has been
ongoing consultation since 1989 on the sewerage issue,
surely that is an ongoing cost. The lack of attendees was possibly due to the
fact that business owners were attempting to capture as many sales to assist
with their losses when the C.B.D. was closed through sewerage spills earlier in
the year.
I was one of
a number of candidates who campaigned for Council in October 2007 that had
Sewerage as a top priority on the list of needs for our district. Cried down
that cost was an issue, I was astounded. Spending $9m on upgrading the swimming
pool with a wave pool, as the beaches that naturally had waves were not safe
for our residents and visitors to swim in because of the pollution.
Was that a better choice? Now
baling out the Rugby with Loans and a new facility. Is that a better
choice? Building a Hunterweiser museum with ratepayers money. Is that a better choice? The list goes on
and there are probably other things that we yet don’t know about.
Lets get back to basics, sewerage
systems that work, clean healthy drinking water, safe roads, good waste
disposal etc. Oh sorry, are these the things councils used to do? Please tell
me when the new rugby stadium is built and as the sewerage system is still not
fixed that the 60 thousand attending will be issued with bags with their entry
to take their business elsewhere.
Come on
people tell the Council enough is enough, fix the problem they have
procrastinated about this for too long. Its time to make Whangarei a healthy place to live and visit.
Warren
Slater
Maunu