Community must be consulted

Community must be consulted

Are you joking, Neil Daykin? Is it a done deal? You have provided Hawke's Bay Today (November 19) with a map of the "new link" in the Rotary Pathways and Cycle Trails, and a section of it is the current walking track from Humber St around Pandora Pond to the old road.

The precious, nationally-recognised Ahuriri Estuary is Crown land, under Department of Conservation jurisdiction.

Under the District Plan, this area is designated for walkers. Any proposed change to that should be publicly notified.

We are not against cycle ways. Its great that people are encouraged to enjoy our local nature assets. Many of our members cycle and walk the pathways.

Let's not put them everywhere, and lets not put them in sensitive areas.

When there are proposed changes of status to public areas such as this, the community must be consulted. (abridged)

Angie Denby, committee member,

Ahuriri Estuary Protection Society

Runway scandal

Hawke's Bay Airport chairman John Palairet's belated admission to the HDC that the long awaited airport runway extension is still too short to attract potential competing airlines' all-purpose Boeing 737-800 workhorse, is a bitter disappointment and betrayal of Hawke's Bay citizens and businesses that were assured by him, the extensions would cater for all aircraft types, currently flying domestically within Australia and New Zealand. Boeing 737-800s are the mainstay of Virgin Blue/Pacific Blue operations in Australia and New Zealand and numerous other airlines as well.

The imperative and urgent requirement of Hawke's Bay's runway extension was to cater and attract competitive airlines like Virgin Blue and Pacific Blue, bringing direct flights and affordable airfares to Hawke's Bay families and travellers, inline with services and fares enjoyed by the rest of the country. At a time when Hawke's Bay is seriously slipping behind economically, tourism is underperforming and politicians of two persuasions are clamouring for credit for bringing the runway extensions about, a cursory assessment of their so called accomplishment would reveal, they too have been short changed (deceived) and should hang their heads accordingly.

Only another 150-plus metres of runway would provide the competition capability, previously claimed and assured by chairman Palairet.

(Abridged) BW Erickson, Havelock North

Documentary joy

Yesterday I went to the special screening of the documentary on Allan Baldwin, the local photographer who was responsible for photographing some of New Zealand's treasured Kuia mau moko in the late '60s, early '70s.

It was absolutely wonderful, not only the photos but the interaction with the people and families involved.

A big thank you to Alexander Behse the producer for the sensitivity and beauty of the documentary plus the foresight in producing this wonderful piece so Allan's photography is not lost to future generations. Allan's humility in obtaining permission from the kuia he photographed was very moving.

Thank you.

Mary Woodford, Ahuriri

Fracking warning

John Pfahlert (petroleum industry association), in his letter (November 16) on planned petroleum drilling in Hawke's Bay ignores many solid facts.

On February 12, 2010, Garth Johnson, then CEO of Tag Oil, commented in a publicity release "the Waipawa black (Hawke's Bay) shale has characteristics very similar to the Bakken Formation and Barnett Shales of Texas," where thousands of petroleum/gas wells have been drilled.

Apache/Tag Oil intend using the same American technology, so we can assume the same operations here.

More than 90 per cent of oil shale drilling in the US has included fracking and most wells in Taranaki to date, of a total less than 30, have been fracked, at least half using a half to one million litres of raw diesel oil, plus other toxins, during the operation.

While heavy metals are not used in fracking injection liquid, they typically return in backflow from shale wells with arsenic; lead; copper; zinc and baruim being represented, both from US wells and similarly in Taranaki.

Accidents, material failures and human negligence can and do occur in engineering operations, any of which, with drilling, can lead to ground-water pollution, while in the US it is recognised that their thousands of wells have decaying steel/cement linings which, within as little as 50 years, can rot to admit petroleum pollution into aquifers - no doubt sooner in an earthquake country.

Hawke's Bay sits upon a complex network of seismic faultlines which, in conjunction with natural, underground rock strata seaming, can permit fracking toxins to migrate well away from the target shale, even upwards, into freshwater aquifers, an eventuality that drillers have no way of positively detecting, until it is too late to reverse.

The American petroleum industry has "refuted" the film Gasland to its own satisfaction but the film is factual, filmed and documented on site; authoritative reports and statistics from the US show a very different picture to that portrayed by the petroleum industry.

On the basis of overwhelming, factual evidence, drilling and fracking in Hawke's Bay, especially through our aquifers, would be a total "no-brainer."

David Appleton, Havelock North