Speculative editorial
In your editorial of January 11 you say, "It is not overly speculative to say that the Whanganui District Council received in the vicinity of $8m from MWH, the designers of the failed Wastewater Treatment Plant".
Legal confidentiality means that revelation of the quantum of compensation is not possible. Your opinion piece is indeed "overly speculative".
MWH made a settlement that was no more than the professional liability cover they would have held. Council's legal costs were significant also.
There is no cause for celebration from Whanganui ratepayers and, as the new plant comes on stream, this will become more and more obvious.
Next year's rates will introduce the full level of operating costs and finance charges.
Council debt is set to soar to more than $120m from the current $80m, and about one-third of that is related to the new wastewater plant.
To offset this, other council activities will suffer cutbacks, and the benefit of efficiencies gained elsewhere will be diverted to enable rates to be affordable.
Last term three councillors, Charlie Anderson, Philippa Baker Hogan and myself, believed that a $41m new plant was unnecessary — a belief that was advocated by professional wastewater engineers, including MWH themselves.
Yes, the old plant failed to meet the resource consent conditions 39 per cent of the time — but that meant that it still worked properly 61 per cent of the time.
It was a tragedy for ratepayers that the views of the consultants who advocated for addressing the overloading issues rather than constructing a new plant were not pursued.
The new plant is fast becoming a reality — but the reality is that for the three councillors who voted against the new plant, and who were joined at the last election by the four "Whanganui Beyond 2030" councillors calling for the same action — it is time to simply move on.
COUNCILLOR ROB VINSEN
Whanganui
A bin too far
How great to be young, fit and living on the flat like the lady who thinks bins are modern and clean. Bags, too, are clean and tidy on the roadside for several hours before the local yobs and dogs get at them.
My bag was collected early in the day when put out every two or three weeks with its pink sticker, but now it lies on the roadside until late afternoon for the fun of the idiots.
Looking at the few bins out around here, it is normal to see them overflowing with compostables and recyclables.
Too often a big bin is bait for the lazy trying to get their money's worth, while the decent and thoughtful recycle and compost in hopes of preserving the planet for not only our descendants but theirs too.
Should bag service disappear altogether, my rubbish will have to lie in my yard, because there is no way I'm able to pull any bin to the gate, and I'm certainly not putting a towbar on my car, as suggested by one of these "providers".
However, should that sad day come, Margaret Haddon's help in getting a bin to my roadside would be gratefully accepted.
ELIZABETH STILES-DAWE
Whanganui
Missed point
Christopher Piper (Chronicle, December 12) also misses the point of John Ch 6.
The Old Testament contains the literal — Israel, manna, rock, water, Red Sea baptism, temple and deliverance etc — pointing to future spiritual realities fulfilled in Christ. The Israelites ate manna to stay alive. We receive the "living bread" (Jesus) to stay spiritually alive.
There was also a spiritual meaning in the manna that "man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord".
Jesus could say to those who thought He proposed cannibalism, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing", ie, it will do no good to eat my physical flesh. "But the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and life."
John's Gospel highlights Jesus' divinity "the word was God". Jesus' claim of divinity was the cause of desertion, not cannibalism. Peter's response was "you have the words that give eternal life". Our Christian response is to "feed" on the spiritual bread. His word in the Bible.
S H FUNNELL
Taihape
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