Tommy Kapai: Another shortcut leads to new risk

The Rena shipwreck. Photo / Alan Gibson

When we were kids growing up on the beach at the Mount there was a saying bandied around by our PE teacher Bill Smith ... "There are no shortcuts in life boy".

And I guess I have tried to prove Bill wrong over the years only to find out there is a consequence for every half-pai action or an invoice for every attempted shortcut in life.

Back roads and alleyways from May St to Marine Pde on our bikes were shortcuts learned at an early age and soon after back roads to Rotorua and bridges from Matapihi into town on our motorbikes soon followed.

All to get somewhere sooner than we needed to be anyway.

These days I have pulled the handbrake on being everywhere in record time and the old saying by Bill about not taking shortcuts in life has hopefully kicked in.

One of the biggest shortcuts that this generation and a few more yet to come will be invoiced for was the one taken by the captain of the Rena - Mauro Balomaga - who wanted to get to Tauranga in less time with less fuel costs.

This day three years ago we had our own 9-11 moment here in Tauranga Moana and although we most certainly dodged a drone we are continuing to count the cost of the shortcut taken by the Rena's captain.

For tangata whenua living out on Motiti the Rena wreck is virtually in their own backyard, while the white sands of Papamoa and Matakana keep getting invoices in the form of bubble balls of polystyrene and little licks of oil that stain the pristine beaches like licorice on a double scoop of a Tay St dairy ice cream.

Should it stay or should it go?

This is the much-debated question and if it was in my backyard, as it is for Motiti Islanders, I would be doing the haka big time.

But there is an environmental disaster equal to Rena going on every day inside the Moana that swamps what is the biggest concern of scientists, biologists and all of the other partners involved in the debate about the Rena recovery.

Lying in the bottom of what is left of the Rena are copper filings that rate as moderate "high risk" to future generations.

Twenty kilometres inshore from Rena, inside the Tauranga harbour, there is another deposit of tons of copper in the form of copper-based sprays that are poured on to our orchards to combat PSA.

This equates to hundreds of tons of soluble copper ending up in the whenua and eventually in our harbour.

Professor Chris Battershill, University of Waikato chair of Coastal Science has stated: "Sediment samples have shown elevated levels of contaminants including copper and PAHs (polyaromatic hydrocarbons), which are known contaminants that were lost to sea from the Rena and its cargo."

Kia ora Chris, I for one understand and agree with your findings.

Now let's do the same tests on the seabed inside the harbour and while we are at it let's test the whenua as well.

If we are to be consistent in our stance on shortcuts inside or outside the harbour when it comes to maximising profit then let's not leave the invoice for future generations - and do something about it today.

Profit before people will always carry an invoice for future generations - especially when it involves shortcuts.

Given the appetite for class action law suits shown by kiwifruit growers blaming our Government for PSA, perhaps a reverse singles could be served by the community, who have been affected by the saturation of copper-based sprays on to our whenua and into our harbours and waterways?

We will never know what these profit-before-people shortcuts have cost. But Bill Smith and our kids and their kids will.

• Tommy Kapai is a Tauranga author and writer.

broblack@xtra.co.nz