Rod Heaps.
There have been calls for Hastings District Council candidates to share their view on the water crisis and how they might address this important issue into the future.
I welcome this opportunity to share my view on our future and also some of our past.
This is the largest drinking water contamination outbreak in New Zealand history and for those who have suffered as a result, my thoughts go out to you.
There are many questions being asked of our council and many of those are still to be answered. Until the source of the contamination is found, (one would think that cannot be too difficult due to the intensification of the contaminant to be able to affect so many) the problem cannot be truly addressed.
We will all be impatiently waiting for an answer to that particular question. But there is the big picture why is our environment being treated as it is?
Bruce Bissett wrote a very good article last week on that big picture. There are so many nasties that run off into our soils.
Many we could definitely control better and many that are thrown into the too-hard basket.
For a start, the automotive contaminants and other undesirables that flow off our roads, the orchard and farm chemicals that soak into the ground or wash into the waterways, the many septic tanks and ground soakage systems, then there's the list of animals that we know is extensive.
As a council, we need to seriously assess what is hitting the ground, to be more vigilant and maybe regulatory on activities in relation to land use.
It is essential we understand the groundwater aquifer entry points, map out areas of ground cracking and opening during dry periods, educate, create incentives and enable our community to be the eyes and ears to protect this big nest we all depend on.
This stuff is not rocket science, but we obviously need to have our bores a lot deeper.
The grating issue for many is that while we have to suck on chlorinated water, the bottling plant owners are laughing all the way back to China.
This has to change, there is no question on this. Unfortunately this responsibility sits with the regional council and can be submitted on for further resource consent applications.
This is something the Hastings District Council should have done for the Tomoana bottling site, but the Mayor endorsed it, said it was great and it would supply 80 jobs.
HDC has to submit against any further foreign extraction of our precious water and protect our most precious resource.
We have to start to appreciate what Mother Nature is telling us, "If you tamper and mess with me too much I will come back and bite you" and that's exactly what has happened here.
- Rod Heaps is a Hastings District councillor and is standing again for the council in the Heretaunga Ward.
- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz