Funny that.
I was unaware of any dairy cows in Queen Street yet we have this massive problem with pollution and there’s not a farm in sight.
Predictably, in my cynical view, there wasn’t a protester either.
We’re all aware of the debate about swimming in the Waikato River and, as I’ve said before, I’d happily swim in it. Correspondingly, I wouldn’t put my toe in the water at an Auckland beach.
The problem in Auckland is massive, caused in the main by old sewer pipes that also carry storm water and overflow after heavy rain.
It’s fortunate there isn’t a farm there because they’d be taken to court and quickly. As it stands, it seems no one has been called to account.
Interestingly, and it could only happen in Auckland, they were going to fix the problem by 2021 but that project’s been shelved. It now won’t be fixed until 2035 so for the next 18 years the Auckland harbours will be polluted.
That is surely an issue worthy of protest but, hey, there aren’t any farmers there so why worry.
The problem is actually going to get worse with the 800 new homes they want to build to solve the housing crisis.
It will be interesting to see what the Government considers more important, housing or pollution – solving a critical problem in election year or compromising our clean, green image.
The pollution will also be exacerbated by extreme weather events caused by climate change and the population surge in Auckland so it’s not going away.
It isn’t a minor issue either with the report claiming a million cubic litres of waste water and raw sewerage, the equivalent of 400 Olympic swimming pools, pours into the Auckland harbours each year.
There are 41 sites where the pollution occurs but two of the sites have the leakage occurring a hundred times a year or twice a week.
We are continually told in the most emotive terms about the health problems with dairy and irrigation but I’d venture to suggest those issues would be absolutely minimal when compared with raw sewerage.
I ask again; where are the protesters?
The ongoing problem of raw sewerage continuing unabated for the next 18 years is infinitely worse than anything our farming industry can do.
I went to the Greenpeace website believing I must have missed something but no. There was a headline telling me to stop seismic blasting. Maybe that causes sewerage to go into harbours and on beaches.
There was also a rant about a bank presumably funding forest destruction. I can see the logic there, destroy the forest, build houses and pollute beaches.
Greenpeace also wants the Huntly coal power plant shut down. Maybe it was polluting the Waikato River.
What irritated me most though was a mealy-mouthed release about the shocking vandalising of a North Otago farmer’s irrigation equipment.
Paradoxically, Greenpeace claimed to be a peaceful protester but could understand the vandalism as being “a sign of overwhelming public frustration about polluted rivers”.
Show me the science.
For the record, I find the vandalism cowardly and criminal, Greenpeace’s tacit support of it reprehensible and the complete lack of political condemnation contemptible.
I forlornly look forward to a properly resourced police investigation with the perpetrators quickly brought to account.
I also believe that to have credibility you need to be consistent.
With the late Sir Robert Muldoon you might not agree with him but he was certainly consistent as were Jim Bolger and Helen Clark. Our current crop of environmental campaigners, Greenpeace included, certainly isn’t consistent, as proved by the Auckland pollution.
We are told ad nauseum about farming’s supposed threat to our clean, green image. There’s an appalling lack of science behind the accusations but the anti-farming rants are extreme.
Correspondingly, we have the country’s largest city with far more people than all the provinces combined pumping raw sewerage into the supposed pristine beaches of Auckland.
Where are the environmental protesters?
The Green Party, always willing to castigate farming and generally show indecent haste in the process, hasn’t said anything about the crap-covered beaches of Auckland.
On its website it accused National of plundering our fisheries, claimed the recent extreme weather was a sign of things to come and pontificated, naively in my view, that a fresh start was needed for European Union trade agreements.
There was nothing I could find about the scandalous pollution of our pristine Auckland beaches and the compromising of our clean, green image.
Again if they can slag off farmers for whatever reason they will do it with alacrity no matter what the facts may be.
When it comes to our largest city they seem cowed by the number of voters there.
A plague on all their houses.
