Latest / Best of Business / Tom Walters: Matakana Oysters owner says industry is struggling after heavy rain and wastewater spill

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Tom Walters: Matakana Oysters owner says industry is struggling after heavy rain and wastewater spill · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk st be
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  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Weeks after a twelve hundred quebic meet a wastewater spill
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  Speaker 2: into the Mahurangi River, Auckland oyster farmers are dealing with
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  Speaker 2: the effects of another overflow, which they say has stuffed
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  Speaker 2: their Christmas season. Water Care says that on the nineteenth
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  Speaker 2: of November, Walkworth experienced more than half the town's average
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  Speaker 2: rainfall for the entire month, a total of fifty three
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  Speaker 2: millimeters overnight. The Ministry of Primary Industries instructed growls to
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  Speaker 2: suspend harvesting while it carried out testing. The results are
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  Speaker 2: expected later this week, but Matakana oysters Tom Walters said
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  Speaker 2: the spell had already ruined their plans for December, their
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  Speaker 2: busiest period of the year. Tom Walters joins me, now
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  Speaker 2: a very good morning to you.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning Carrie.
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  Speaker 2: It must be gutting.
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  Speaker 3: Ah. It's been a gutting year and it seems to
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  Speaker 3: be the gutting cherry on pop of at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: Now you can't stay there, can you?
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  Speaker 3: Well not really if this is going to continue for
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  Speaker 3: another year or two. Before they actually bought the problem
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  Speaker 3: out permanently.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not going to be able to do it
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  Speaker 2: in the next six months. You've already had two spells.
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  Speaker 2: You had them last year. And look, aren't you worried
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  Speaker 2: about reputational damage to the to the brand?
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  Speaker 3: Oh well yeah, I mean we've had We've had more
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  Speaker 3: than twenty something spills this year. I think all up
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  Speaker 3: and weather. The reputation of the Maharani Harbor is really
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  Speaker 3: been padders. And I mean at this time of the year,
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  Speaker 3: we're sort of trying to get Christmas orders in and
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  Speaker 3: get people ready to have Christmas studies and things like that,
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  Speaker 3: and that's not possible with this situation. Yeah, I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I can't hang on for another year of it.
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  Speaker 2: No, And you've got watergre who will who will compensate
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  Speaker 2: you when it's there when it's a technical failure, But
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  Speaker 2: they're not required to compensate for heavy rainfall.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean yeah, so that dry weather spill was
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  Speaker 3: complete stuff up a brand new infrastructure. When it comes
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  Speaker 3: to rain that causes wastewater overflows, they have consents that
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  Speaker 3: they've written basically themselves, allowing to be able to still
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  Speaker 3: up two hundred times a year in any overflow pipe
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  Speaker 3: or point, and so there's nothing much we can do
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  Speaker 3: about that, unfortunately, because for them it's all legal, and
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  Speaker 3: the hypocrisy being that anyone else farmer set the tank person,
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  Speaker 3: any industry that was doing the same thing, it would
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  Speaker 3: be fined out of existence. Basically that these guys can
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  Speaker 3: just do it for the better good of trying to
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  Speaker 3: fix the infrastructure up and where the sort of ones
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  Speaker 3: caught out, and those the environment and every one who
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  Speaker 3: wants to use our beautiful river and harbor.
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  Speaker 2: So what do you recommend? What would you what would
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  Speaker 2: be your ideal solution, Well, it would.
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  Speaker 3: Be to try and find where the stormwater is inflow
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  Speaker 3: is getting into the wastewater system, because right now they've
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  Speaker 3: done a few temporary fixes. We've had to point out
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  Speaker 3: all year horroblem areas and walk with which I've tried
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  Speaker 3: to fix up, but now it seems like they've actually
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  Speaker 3: gone gone, well, we're not going to do anything else
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  Speaker 3: but done all we can. We're just going to wait
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  Speaker 3: until we put the new pipe through end of next
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  Speaker 3: year or the year after. And there's no investigation that
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  Speaker 3: I know of to try and find where the storm
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  Speaker 3: water is getting into the wastewater system, and that would
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  Speaker 3: really help us out. Every little thing that could get
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  Speaker 3: fixed would help us allow more rainfall before more stewages
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  Speaker 3: coming into the river and harbor. Another thing I would
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  Speaker 3: love someone to do is actually looking too how these
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  Speaker 3: resource contents are done, how they liaison with the public,
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  Speaker 3: with people like us, with Ewie, with the local boards.
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  Speaker 3: Because it feels a little bit hard when we never
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  Speaker 3: got told in twenty twenty two or twenty three that
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  Speaker 3: they are going for what was too wet weather schools
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  Speaker 3: a year to two hundred. It seems ridiculous that they
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  Speaker 3: seem to have too much power to be here allowed
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  Speaker 3: to do that. But yeah, that's what I had liked done,
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  Speaker 3: at least in the short term.
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  Speaker 2: Every time I hear heavy, heavy, heavy rain, I think
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  Speaker 2: how disgusting the sea is going to be, and ideally,
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  Speaker 2: you know, the new pipes around Auckland are going to
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  Speaker 2: fix that, but they said nothing is ever going to
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  Speaker 2: be one hundred percent you know, fixable. Is there anywhere
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  Speaker 2: in the country where you could set up an oyster
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  Speaker 2: farm and not run the risk of having this this overflow,
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  Speaker 2: because what's the alternative that they just run it down
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  Speaker 2: the streets? Or run it into a park or reserve.
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  Speaker 3: A very very good question. I mean, I think unless
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  Speaker 3: you're an incredibly isolated areas and we were once not
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  Speaker 3: too many years ago, but you know you are going
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  Speaker 3: to get I mean, this is happening in a scale
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  Speaker 3: that is national. It's happening all over the place, unfortunately
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  Speaker 3: all Oyster areas because a lot of up north where
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  Speaker 3: the growth hasn't hidden things like that. But unfortunately it
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  Speaker 3: is the way that we've grown without being able to
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  Speaker 3: handle the infrastructure. So nowhere is it's going to be
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  Speaker 3: one hundred safe from those massive tempest, rainstorms and things
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  Speaker 3: like that. Auckland has been experiencing this problem for a
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  Speaker 3: few decades and we all know what the beaches are
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  Speaker 3: like and rivers are like after it rains and caps
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  Speaker 3: in there. That is because unfortunately the infrastructure couldn't keep
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  Speaker 3: up with the growth, and it's sort of like the
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  Speaker 3: angulance at the bottom of the cliff. I don't know
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  Speaker 3: what the solution is to make it better, but I
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  Speaker 3: really wish we had just grown appropriately and it would
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  Speaker 3: have been a better situation for us. How can we
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  Speaker 3: be clean green New Zealand we have this happening all
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  Speaker 3: over our you know, comforts.
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  Speaker 2: Crazy, how long can you stay in business?
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  Speaker 3: Look, Kerry, this year, I've been really fortunate. I don't
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  Speaker 3: know how he made it this. I mean, we're really
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  Speaker 3: lucky to have lovely community support, doing a fundraiser for
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  Speaker 3: us and just managing fine oysters from other areas. But
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  Speaker 3: that costs money. For instance, since the dry with this
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  Speaker 3: fill end of October, I've spent nearly twenty thousand dollars
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  Speaker 3: on buying oysters in from other areas so you.
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  Speaker 2: Can fulfill your orders.
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  Speaker 3: Well, just so that I can my doors open to
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  Speaker 3: the public coming in and orders. Unfortunately, it doesn't really
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  Speaker 3: make economic sense. But we were really hoping to get
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  Speaker 3: the Christmas new period in and unfortunately last three years
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  Speaker 3: in November the rain which was on average about eighty
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  Speaker 3: six mills previously, it's more like one hundred and twenty
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  Speaker 3: or thirty mills a month in November now, so November
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  Speaker 3: and December a weather than they used to be. And
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  Speaker 3: you know, that's what we have to deal with. But
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  Speaker 3: it just comes with a lot of more problems. And yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean we can't, we can't survive
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  Speaker 3: with us next year. That's assure at least not my
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  Speaker 3: little retail situation unless the Order Care come to the
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  Speaker 3: party and help us out in terms of just giving
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  Speaker 3: us something to survive until their permanent type comes through
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  Speaker 3: and also maybe giving us buying helping us fund an
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  Speaker 3: area where we can put our oysters from the Mahrangi
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  Speaker 3: into an other farm and another location just to decorate
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  Speaker 3: them out until they're healthy again. Options are there, but
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  Speaker 3: they just don't seem to want to come to the
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  Speaker 3: party for that unfortunately.
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  Speaker 2: We Yeah, so what having a sewage free space for
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  Speaker 2: the oyster farm?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there is but that we could hopefully use and
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  Speaker 3: that will have to build ourselves. These areas there. Some
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  Speaker 3: of us want to be able to what we call
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  Speaker 3: relay oysters from one from our harbor put them into
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  Speaker 3: another harbor. I mean, logistically it's quite difficult and it
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  Speaker 3: does take a lot of time and money. But there
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  Speaker 3: is a good plan that's trying to be put in
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  Speaker 3: place by our wonderful present of the Maranguist Farm Association.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, we can't afford to do it without assistance,
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  Speaker 3: and that's the hard thing right now.
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  Speaker 2: I just must be so galling.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, you know it's it's farming in terms of
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  Speaker 3: there's always a problem, there's always weather events, there's always something.
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  Speaker 3: This is a human made problem that should really never
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  Speaker 3: have happened. The Maharangi was a beautiful, beautiful, clean harbor
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  Speaker 3: for decades and decades, and this growth has only been
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  Speaker 3: in the last five years or more. They knew that
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  Speaker 3: it was that carrying capacity their best seage facilities five
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  Speaker 3: years ago. Auckland Council allowed more growth to occur. In
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  Speaker 3: the meantime, we don't know private plan changes, you know,
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  Speaker 3: developers get away with it whatever. It seems to be
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  Speaker 3: that the environment is never considered in these situations. It's
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  Speaker 3: like we're a real estate economy in New Zealand with
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  Speaker 3: a slide economy attached to it. So I don't know,
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  Speaker 3: it's just sometimes you get the whole like, oh, you
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  Speaker 3: just don't know how you can cope with it for
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  Speaker 3: much longer. Or hear the rain on the roof and
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  Speaker 3: people have heard me say that all the year and
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  Speaker 3: can't sleep and things like that. But what does make
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  Speaker 3: it at least a little bit okay is when people
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  Speaker 3: with beautiful support, people coming and people wanting to talk
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  Speaker 3: about it, people really wanting to help. Just someone smiling
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  Speaker 3: and just being kind to it just makes all the
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  Speaker 3: difference for all of us and we really appreciate it.
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  Speaker 2: Oh Tom, Yeah, the only answer is relocation or solving
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  Speaker 2: the problem, and water Care has said yeah, they won't
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  Speaker 2: be completed till the end of twenty twenty six. We
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  Speaker 2: really feel for the oyster growers. We've accelerated the first
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  Speaker 2: stage of the growth servicing pipeline, bringing it forward by
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  Speaker 2: two years to evidence service by the end of next year.
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  Speaker 2: When it's in service, this pipeline will prevent an overflow
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  Speaker 2: in similar weather to what we experienced last week, but
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  Speaker 2: they cannot guarantee a hundred percent that they can fix it.
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