The pond at the base of the waterfall feature in Laurie Hall Park is covered in green slime. Photo / Michael Cunningham
The pond at the base of the waterfall feature in Laurie Hall Park is covered in green slime. Photo / Michael Cunningham
A once glistening waterfall feature in Whangarei's central city has become a slimy green eyesore.
The waterfall in Laurie Hall Park has been out of action and, with the lack of flowing water, the pond at the base has become covered in green algae and begun to fill with rubbishincluding, jandals, orange road cones, takeaway wrappers and expired parking tickets.
Whangarei District Council said the pond was scheduled to be emptied next Tuesday with repair work to begin on the broken waterfall.
However, a video posted on Facebook on Tuesday highlighted the neglected green pool after a German tourist was reluctant to climb in the "pretty disgusting" pond to retrieve a rugby ball.
Whangarei's Ricki Prime said a mate had alerted him to the issue and so, on his lunch break, he put together a video clip and posted it online calling for some action from the council to have it cleaned.
He was there as the German visitor faced the dilemma of getting his ball.
"I kicked the ball into the little lake and obviously the lake is pretty disgusting so I don't really want to get in ... so we have a little problem now," said the tourist.
Mr Prime pointed out the central park housed Whangarei's war memorial and having the slimy pond nearby was disappointing.
"It's pretty embarrassing to come to a town and this is almost Third World pond-like."
Council parks technical officer Spencer Jellyman said the waterfall was designed in the 1970s using the design and technology of the era and faults have seen it turned off for repairs numerous times over the years.
"A few years ago we found the waterfall was losing thousands of litres of water each week. Since then we have undertaken numerous explorations, trying to track down the source of the leaks," Mr Jellyman said.
The work had included repairing many leaks in the bottom pond and the sump area, and setting the waterfall going again, only to find it was still leaking.
"We have done multiple dye tests and pressure tested the sump area but, to date, we are not certain we have dealt with all the leaks."
Laurie Hall Park waterfall pond. Photo / Michael Cunningham
He said over winter the pond had filled up naturally from rainfall and had been holding water at a stable level.
"So we have been monitoring it given our plans to give the waterfall a clean-up, replace the pump in January, and start it up again in the hope that any water loss is minor."
During the cold weather the water was clear and if anything fell in it was easy for contractors to fish it out. Recently, with long sunlight hours and warm weather, algae has grown.
"We knew we would be cleaning it out next week, for the work to come in January, so decided there was no point in our contractors to go into the stagnant water over this short period," Mr Jellyman said.
