Room aplenty for water treatment plant in catchmen

I’ve been reading the multiple Facebook blogs about Watercare’s water treatment plans for our area. I feel our community is losing the unity and purpose essential to make Auckland Council and Watercare listen to us. We must not be distracted from the real issue, which is “where is the best place to site a water treatment plant”. This issue has three categories. One; we get the best plant for our money. Two; least community impact. Three; best environmental outcome. It is wrong that Watercare declined a public meeting, and looks to be adopting a strategy of selected focus groups and small meetings at which they restrict the number of public participants. By talking to us individually or in small groups they can influence community consensus. We must demand the whole community is given all and only the facts. I asked Watercare at the Woodlands Park meeting, why can’t a water treatment plant be built inside the 17,000 ha of Waitakere catchment and parkland. They answered they have to keep the catchment areas pristine! This is not in line with the facts, Auckland Council aerial top dressed the Hunua water catchment with 1080 poison, or the landfill at the South Eastern end of Exhibition Drive where they dispose of their water treatment plant waste on catchment land (photo attached). We the affected communities back onto 17,000 ha of catchment land where no people live, an area which stretches from Laingholm and Huia, north to Bethel’s Beach. I ask Auckland Council and Watercare what technical reasons they have that stops us minimising human impact, by placing a new water treatment plant on public catchment land.

Ken Turner