Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Andrew Dickens: Are we sticking by clean green NZ?

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Andrew Dickens: Are we sticking by clean green NZ? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So in the drivetime show ran about six pm Friday,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I interviewed representative of oyster farmers in the Mahorangi area
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: who were outraged at a wastewater dump by Watercare that
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: had poisoned all the oysters. They have to close because
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of this dump. They have to close for twenty eight days,
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  Speaker 1: close down their business. One farmers had to dump eighty
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: thousand oysters. That is not good for business, that's not
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: good for their cash flow. And as the interview went on,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I found out that this is not an isolated incident.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, it's happened wait for this, thirty nine times
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  Speaker 1: this year. And even worse, apparently Watercare has the right
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to do a dump like this two hundred times every year.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I was flabbergasted. That's a lot of dumping into a river,
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  Speaker 1: of a lot of wastewater that's killing the oysters in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the mullets. And then on the weekend I actually got
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a personal call from a local MP and she told
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  Speaker 1: me the Watercare basically wrote their own consent, they needed
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to involve public consultation. Yet all they did was drop
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: some leaflets at the walk With Library, so nobody knew
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: this was happening. She raised the issue with the mare
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the man who wants to make Auckland a global city,
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  Speaker 1: and mister fix It didn't seem at all interested in
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  Speaker 1: fixing it. And so now they dump the region's waste
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: water into the Maharanngi River and they're allowed to do
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: that two hundred times a year. It's killing the river,
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  Speaker 1: it's destroying the oyster business. It's desibated commercial fishing in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the area. So it's a bit of a symptom of
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: intensification because Walkwith's going off. It's a symptom of the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: infrastructure being unable to cope with the new demand. We
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: build the houses, we don't make the infrastructure. And it's
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a symptom of a council not having enough money to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: fix the problem and not having enough desire to help
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the effective businesses and not wanting to rescue a wrecked river.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: And honestly, I'd rather go and swim in the River
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  Speaker 1: Thames in London or the sand in Paris than swim
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: in the Maharrangi in rural North Auckland. And isn't that
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a shame? This issue has been swept under the carpet
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: by water Care and the authorities and it's frankly just
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: not good enough because day by day, clean green functioning
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: New Zealand is becoming a myth and a lie we
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: all like to tell. For more from Early Edition with
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it Be from
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio