Stinking mess angers Little Waihi residents

By ROSALEEN MACBRAYNE

Months of putting up with 1500sq m of dense, putrid sea lettuce on their doorstep have left residents of the tiny Bay of Plenty village of Little Waihi, near Te Puke, at wits' end.

The problem had got well beyond locals raking and carting the stinking algae from the Waihi estuary and authorities did not want to know.

So this week Max Johnston got out at low tide aboard his tractor with a bar at the back and spent five hours hauling and piling the mucky mulch into rows.

Usually scenic Little Waihi is a few minutes' winding drive over the hill from Maketu and Mr Johnston is the area's community board chairman.

So far local authorities have refused to help clean up nature's mess.

Environment BOP chief executive Jeff Jones said the sea lettuce was a "perfectly natural occurrence" and the regional council did not feel it had any responsibility to act.

The Western Bay of Plenty District Council agrees, but chief executive Glenn Snelgrove said the situation would continue to be monitored.

"If the issue gets to the point where the medical officer of health advises that the problem is becoming an issue under the Health Act, then we will reassess our current position," he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnston decided to act rather than talk following a meeting last Sunday of about 50 fed-up residents.

"I did it from the community spirit point of view,"said.

"After all, it is Clean-Up New Zealand Week."

However, the mass of decomposing lettuce should be removed by purpose-built, bulldozer-like equipment, said Mr Johnston.

The piles he had left would start to break down "and I don't know what is going to happen next".

Resident Jacki Elsworth said Mr Johnston's effort had made a noticeable difference to the foreshore and greatly reduced the smell.

"You wouldn't have believed the stench that was here," she said.

Instead of water and sand there was dark, stagnant filth about 60cm deep just a few metres from her house and the boundaries of 18 other homes fronting the estuary, she said.

"Even with all the windows and doors closed you wake up in the night and the smell is in the bedroom."

Little Waihi has about 60 houses, 50 per cent of them holiday baches. Half the permanent population are pensioners.

Also on the estuary edge is the Bledisloe Holiday Park, which has been losing business as campers arrive and hurriedly depart, disgusted by the fetid estuary.

Ms Elsworth said previously residents armed with rakes and wheelbarrows had been able to deal with the sea lettuce.

But a king tide at Easter had swept in a blanket of the stuff.

Ever since, she had been campaigning for the authorities to do something.

As the months went by the problem compounded, wiping out "billions" of crabs and leaving dead sea snails everywhere.

Sea lettuce is common in harbours and estuaries but is not usually locked in - as has happened at Little Waihi.