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 17^th 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