The council has approved a $101.94 million budget for next financial year with no increases in rates.
To achieve a zero rates increase it cut $143,000 from its freshwater biosecurity funding.
That included pest fish projects it supports in partnership with the Department of Conservation, including its maintenance of a koi carp trap and digester on the shores of Lake Waikare, north of Huntly.
That digester was built in 2012 as part of the council’s CarpN Neutral project. Over four years a trap removed 35 tonnes of carp from the lake. The digester turns the carp into fertiliser pellets.
Council integrated catchment services manager Patrick Whaley said the trap and digestor are being decommissioned, saving $43,000.
“The equipment is near its end of life,” he said.
It also cut $82,000 for staff recruitment, which was earmarked for a joint regional animal pest role with DOC and operational planning support for Taupo’s biosecurity programme.
Whaley said the role is being put on hold with DOC looking at other and better ways to do the job.
However, it will keep its joint commitment with DOC to fund $60,000 to recruit a pest fish co-ordinator.
Koi carp are a major problem in stirring up bottom sediment in waterways when feeding.
That reduces water clarity and light and kills native plants.
Council chief executive Vaughan Payne said it has not so much cut its budgets as flatlined them.
It will look to the Government, which has earmarked $1.1 billion for jobs on environmental projects including pest eradication.
“We know that the Government has increased funding for pest management so it would be entirely appropriate that DOC allocate more money for pest management fish including koi carp.
“If that funding did not go towards koi carp then the council would continue to do what it has done and that is whatever it can to with its limited resources but it’s quite important that we don’t take on, as far as practical, Government responsibilities.”
Whaley said the council has put in a funding bid for $9m over five years for an environmental enhancement project on the management of pest fish.
If successful it will increase the pest fish co-ordinator role to a full-time for 2021 to 2025.
It will also provide funding for the co-ordinator to help community-led initiatives and to collaborate with community groups, do more science around spawning locations and install traps.
DOC›s Waikato operations manager Ray Scrimgeour said it will take a wait-and-see approach with the impact it will have on its pest fish eradication programme.
“Reduction in funding always presents challenges in continuing conservation work. Pest fish are particular issue for us in Waikato but we need a wider range of stakeholders involved – not just DOC and WRC.
“Our efforts are focused on a small number of high-priority sites. Again, we would need to look more deeply at what a budget reduction means. Control of those type of pests does need a medium to long-term sustained approach and how that work is funded is crucial.”
Scrimgeour said the finer details of the budget increase for conservation work are still being worked through.
“It would be premature to say if any of that funding will go toward this sort of work. However, the Government’s Budget announcement did send a strong signal about pest control.”
