Catherine Delahunty.
The Bay people and their environment have been through so much in the past few years, from Wairoa down to Waipawa.
The disastrous pollution of the Waiau and Wairoa rivers from the collapse of the Waihi Dam is just one extreme example where the mismanagement of local resources has had serious consequences.
When Eastland Group's dam failed in February last year, it sent silt into the Wairoa River and clogged it up with "sticky, stinky mud".
Wairoa District Council gets its town supply from the Wairoa River, yet despite the seriousness of the disaster for both the river and the people who depend on it, Eastland is not going to be convicted.
Instead they are paying up to $250,000 over time to a community project for Wairoa.
I am all for community projects and compensation for the dam, but what about fixing the state of the river?
The ecological impact of massive amounts of sediment from behind the dam must be investigated, and the public must be reassured that a catastrophe like this cannot happen again.
The deal for the dam did nothing to fix the broken pumps on farms reliant on the river water.
The forestry management in the hills behind the dam plus the failure of the dam itself are not fixed by a regional park for Wairoa.
Further south, the Havelock North Inquiry is still examining the causes of the disastrous water contamination issue.
The likely source has been identified as sheep in the paddocks near the bores in Brookfield Rd.
This issue has faded from the news agenda outside of Hawke's Bay, even though people and their livelihoods are still suffering.
Whatever the final outcome of the inquiry, issues have been raised about how well water was being monitored, and again where was the regional and local leadership to protect water quality?
I find it unbelievable that when families could not trust the water coming from their own taps, they had to depend on bottled water, which, in all likelihood, came from aquifers very much like the one supplying their town with water.
Companies can tap and bottle water from aquifers for the measly price of a resource consent but not pay for the precious resource they flog off to their own communities and overseas.
We need leadership from our local authorities to ensure that both the water quality and quantity in these aquifers are protected from abuse and pollution so that we can all trust the water we drink, and aren't faced with restrictions.
And meanwhile, when all this is going on, there is the threat that the Ruataniwha dam poses to water quality.
The Tukituki, already polluted with nitrates from intensive agriculture, will be pushed beyond its limits if this debacle of a water storage scheme goes ahead.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council cannot play regulator and promoter of a dam that will have such dire consequences for water quality in the region.
Again, leadership from local authorities that protects our environment from harm is severely lacking.
They should look to the example demonstrated by Ngati Kahungunu who took the Regional Council to court in order to protect the sustainability of the Heretaunga aquifer.
They won the case but it cost many thousands of dollars that they could have spent on sustaining whanau and hapu if they had not had to teach the Regional Council its responsibility to protect underground water.
The connection between underground water and the rivers is poorly understood by the public but suffice to say we must protect all water sources if we want to keep our health.
The issue of water leadership was central to the local government elections last year and the mood was clear, the advocates for water protection beat the water irrigation lobby.
This political change will, hopefully, bring some long-term vision for water into regional government.
The droughts in the Bay need this vision as large water storage schemes, which create farmer dependency on irrigation and enable high-water-use land uses, are not a sustainable model.
The protection of rivers and aquifers in the Bay need to be the top priority so that water quality and quantity is sustained.
A price on commercial uses of water and a commitment to swimmable rivers needs to be considered at national level so that people in Hawke's Bay have the tools to look after the most vital thing we depend on apart from the air - our water.
The Green Party is to hold a public meeting on the health of the Tukituki River on Tuesday, February 28, at 7pm at Matahiwi Marae. Speakers include Professor Russell Death, freshwater ecologist from Massey University. For more on the meeting, click here.
- Catherine Delahunty is a Green Party MP and the party's water spokesperson.
- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz