Cleanup time for Otara Creek

By SCOTT KARA

Otara Creek - home to rats and rubbish - is less polluted now that a number of factories have cleaned up their act.

The Auckland Regional Council has concentrated on 81 businesses in one part of the creek's catchment area, near the intersection of East Tamaki Rd and Birmingham Rd.

The campaign is already making a difference, according to pollution control officer Barry Strong, who says the water quality is improving.

Twenty-four of the 81 businesses - covering everything from burger bars to packaging firms to tyre shops - had presented pollution problems, he said, but none of them was now polluting the creek.

"Now that we've done our visits, we would have a very minor number of actual discharges."

But there is still a lot to do before the creek can be enjoyed.

The regional council's campaign is part of the Manukau City Council's major cleanup.

The main focus is a $250,000 investigation into what is needed to clean up the creek. This money will also be used to lodge a resource consent with the regional council by June to do the necessary work.

Senior infrastructure policy analyst Pat Holm said it was not known whether dredging would be required as part of the cleanup.

A swimming monitoring check started this month, but she could not estimate when people would be able to swim.

The aim was to get the water fit for recreational use such as boating within the next two years, and the ultimate goal was to have people swimming, she said.

Part of the cleanup involved ridding the area of rats. In September an Action on Housing and Health in Otara report highlighted the bad condition of many state houses and recommended a vermin-control programme to eradicate rats.

The council decided not to supply free rat bait citywide, instead opting to treat cases as they came up.

Gary Stephenson, manager for environmental health, said there had been no major rat problems in the area recently, but he was expecting an influx of the creatures in autumn when it became colder.