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Whangarei community meeting

21 October 2005

National Environmental Standards

Drinking water

  • Water quality is a key issue.
  • The process is consuming too much money. The money should be spent on actions. The Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP) is running well.
  • People do not like the hierarchy of waterways approach because it lowers the importance of other waterways and all water is important.
  • Many farmers are not aware how their farming activities impact on the quality of water. Farmers need to be given more education, incentives and alternatives. A lot of the information that farmers receive is biased by people selling agricultural products. Fertiliser interests often dominate.
  • Regarding human drinking water, people do not agree that the National Environmental Standards are consistent to the multi barrier approach. The multi barrier approach means keeping new water clean. Post treatment considerations are not the multi barrier approach because there are concerns about the usage and impact of contraceptives in waterways.
  • Land use practices are critical to the improvement of water quality. Publicity of good examples is greatly needed. Maybe we should require the media to publicise a minimum number of good news stories.
  • The National Environmental Standards on drinking water workshop only came to Hamilton. It did not even take place in Auckland. People wanted the opportunity for consultation here (Regional Council and District Health Board etc.)
  • The benchmarks for water standards in the natural environment need to consider Northland. Northland has its own specific issues (e.g. air quality).
  • The community is concerned that too many water takes are depleting groundwater. We would like to see storage off-river tanks on a national level and schemes for the recycling of water (e.g. watering gardens).

Other standards

  • We would like to see National Environmental Standards on marine water quality. The National Environmental Standards need to look at controlling land use and activities (sustainable agricultural practices) in order to protect the cleanliness of the water in the sea and rivers.
  • The National Environmental Standards could also look at forestry felling practices. The clearing of fell has an adverse effect on water quality. There are rules in plans that are not necessarily being complied with.
  • 50% of people in Northland are on individual supplies.

General comments

  • We need to keep Northland GE free. We would like guidance from the government on how to deal with genetic engineering and the effects on soil and water quality.
  • Northland has a lot of short rivers. The marine environment as well as the freshwater environment needs to be considered. The Water Programme of Action (WPA) does not currently do this. There needs to be integrated management of rivers and estuaries.
  • There are lots of problems with the sustainable water programme, particularly with the timing of the consultation over Christmas (anything arriving after December 1st will not be touched to the end of January).
  • Concerned that batteries are not featured in the waste programme.
  • Northland is a large region that needs to have multiple consultation venues and hui and will involve many iwi. There are a large number of iwi in the Northland. The Ministry needs a meaningful process through which it can consult with the iwi.
  • Northland is a large region with long distances to travel and many people have unreliable vehicles and huge travel costs.
  • The Department of Conservation needs more resources and money. Resources are needed across the country.

Resource Management Act

Resource consents

  • The RMAA reforms around notification and consultation are admirable.
  • Councils do not seem to be aware that the amendments are in effect. Councils have not changed practice from RMAA05.
  • Consultation requirements in particular have not been adhered to (e.g. councils are still sending out letters requiring consultation within).
  • The ‘Assessment of Environmental Effects’ (AEE’s) prepared by consultants and council officers are the only ones who can question the validity. There is concern that the views presented are one sided.
  • The council has the ability to request additional reports.
  • We need new processes to ensure that council planning documents are legal before they are publicly notified.
  • The level of non-notification to communities is a concern. Councils are under pressure with sheer workload.
  • There is a struggle with notifications. No community input into a submission is frustrating for Whangarei District Council planners.
  • The effect of small communities to go through the process is huge (e.g. financially, family time and resources).
  • A participant from the New Zealand Historic Places Trust requested assistance with guidance on managing archaeological sites when they are disturbed by a proposal requiring a resource consent.

Hearing process

  • There is a poor understanding of the hearing process by the public in general. There needs to be more education and awareness about the council hearing process.
  • The public need to be able to have their say and things need to be kept simple to enable participation.

Policies and plans

  • We need to increase participation in the plan process.
  • Plan writing is the democratic process. Participation needs to be at this level.
  • Advocacy for plan changes are important for communities if they are unhappy with decisions. The plan making process should be simplified to encourage better public participation. Plans need not be so legalistic. The current legalistic approach makes things adversarial.
  • Amendments have enhanced local decision making and should result in a less adversary process.
  • The next package of reforms should speed up the plan preparation process further. Before a plan is published it should be reviewed by a regulatory body for public interest, legality and integrity.
  • There should be a balance between the local situation and national consistency to develop a consistent national plan (e.g. model district plans).

Iwi consultation

  • We need clarification on iwi consultation. There is no mandate to consult with them. There needs to be guidance regarding the capacity for iwi to participate in the process. The positive side of the amendment is that iwi have more effective input.
  • There are many difficulties when undertaking consultation with iwi including relevance of iwi’s concerns and time delays.
  • There should be greater consultation with iwi. The council still has to assess part II matters and this may require discussion with iwi.
  • Charges are often high from iwi for participation in Northland

Capacity building

  • The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website regarding RMA is helpful however it needs to have some of the basics added (i.e. a general guidance).
  • Community participation in processes has been constrained by councils.
  • Councils need to come into focus with the rest of the country. They have taken what they want out of the Act. They need to seriously think about how they need to engage and empower communities. The Act does not give any guidance over the council’s obligation to do this.
  • There is concern over the quality of decision making at the local level. We need to educate decision makers.
  • Councils need to be better trained and equipped to consult effectively. There is an absence of accountability in the Act (i.e. how things are measured and reported). The level of accounting for environmental performance is weak and variable in New Zealand. It is possible that the LGA goes someway do to this but not enough. There needs to be more accountability of councils to measure and report back to communities.
  • There is a major shortage of planners in Whangarei (3 out of 8 positions filled). A one year post graduate course in planning could encourage more people’s interest in becoming planners.

General comments

  • The National Energy Policy gives expert policy guidance on where we get our energy from.
  • Are we repeating the mistakes of the past? Issues become apparent when there is no National Policy Statement.
  • Aquaculture has had an adverse effect on Northland waters as it seems to have enabled councils to just throw in aquaculture farms wherever they want without thinking.
  • Some of MFE’s guidelines are good (e.g. biosolids).
  • There is concern that MFE and regional councils are not working together enough to reduce the biosecurity risk.
  • There is concern about climate change and the impacts on flora and fauna and the opportunity of foreign species coming in to destroy Northlands precious species.
  • Local democracy is important. In order to disseminate best practice local and geographical differences in New Zealand need to be acknowledged. National standards cannot always be applied across the country (e.g. applying air standards to a predominantly rural area).

Waste

Tourism and Waste

  • There are problems regarding tourists as waste has been found dumped in obvious tourist places.
  • Visitors to the region are also seeing the effects of waste being tipped.

Waste reduction

There are concerns about waste management companies undermining waste reduction (e.g. through offering really cheap waste disposal services).

Education and information

  • Education is a major issue regarding waste. We need more explanation as to the purposefulness of recycling. Why is recycling a good thing to do?
  • It is hard to be sustainable in rural areas. MFE’s recommendation on how to be sustainable (i.e. environmental footprint) is not achievable in rural areas.
  • There is a need for more guidance and encouragement from councils on promotion and communication of environmental issues. Why should we do things?

Recycling, reuse and community

  • The statistic that 95% of people have access to recycling in New Zealand is questionable as recycling is not readily available in Northland. There are not enough recycling bins, subsequently people dump their waste or burn it.
  • It can be more costly for councils to put recycling bins in place than to deal with waste.
  • There are costs issues involved in recycling. Transport is costly (e.g. shipping waste overseas). Whangarei is starting to ship waste to Redvale landfill. It is better to have local solutions.
  • Local solutions will solve waste problems (e.g. how to get around transport and CO2 emission issues).
  • A local solution for glass is to crush it and put it back on the beaches.
  • There should be a container deposit for glass as voluntary solutions do not work.

Packaging Accord

The Packaging Accord does not work. Local operators can attest to this.

Institutions and legislation

  • Incentives and disincentives are needed by government regarding waste. We need to see more evidence of government taking responsibility for waste issues. At present the Ministry’s credibility is not great.
  • There are concerns about the disposal of industrial waste. People would like to see changes being made to the building code as lots of environmental problems come from buildings. Getting sustainable aspects into the building code is not necessarily the best solution however as builders are not essentially the problem. The problems are often caused by the toxic chemicals in wood and other materials that end up in the landfill sites.

General comments

  • There is little co-ordination in ‘waste to energy’ potential projects.
  • There are dysfunctional guidelines for stormwater.
  • Marsden B hearing commissioners did not consider climate change.
  • There should be waste levies.
  • There are concerns about the disposal of small batteries.
  • People are worried that the potential of littering will increase with the shift to user pays. If there were targets in the New Zealand Waste Strategy on litter it would help regulate this.
  • We want to see economic incentives to discourage non recyclables.
  • Initiatives and projects often do not address smaller regions or it is certainly harder for smaller regions to sustain them.

General topics

Urban development, design and planning

  • Whangarei District’s growth has taken everyone by surprise. The Ruakaka structure plan was opened by large blocks of land for development. It happened so fast that the services have not been put in place as planned for.
  • There are tensions between community groups and developers (i.e. examples of development pressures impinging on significant national landscape).

Council processes

District councils have no experts in areas such as contaminated land and biodiversity. They have parts of their hazardous substances plan that they are not administered at all. Some of these responsibilities need to be devolved to regional councils so that they get done and they are administered the same way across the district.

Environmental education and information

  • More education is needed to help us understand what we should be doing to enable sustainability.
  • There needs to be more national guidance to help local decision makers and influence local decisions.
  • People desire information about our impacts and how we can act to implement sustainability.
  • There are good overseas examples that have provided direction for waste control and disposal.
  • We should be encouraging more self reliant behaviour through tools such as water tanks etc.
  • Environmental education is needed in schools as it is critical to developing understanding. There are currently opportunities for developing and changing the current curricula to focus on environmental issues.

Water

  • Northland Regional Council and catchment Mangakahia employed co-ordination landowners and baseline of information to improve water quality and benefit the health of the community.
  • Northland Regional Forum (Ministry of Social Development, Department of Conservation, councils etc.) discussed water quality implications (social, economic and cultural). The Ministry of Social Development has 65,000 contacts within the organisation and joined up activities with local government in the rural areas to promote stream and water quality.
  • There needs to be education at the polytechnic about freshwater quality and planning to prevent flood problems (i.e. eliminate flood plains).

General comments

  • How can we show stronger leadership in and implementation of the sustainable programme of action?
  • The government should be showing more leadership.
  • The RMA is slipping by letting people do things they were not allowed to in the past.
  • The sharing of knowledge and tools is not good.
  • The North Health Protection Board has acknowledged that they could be doing more with regard to Māori health protection.
  • Historic catchments do not fit the way that land should be managed.
  • There is a lot of information about riparian management.
  • Catchment management is not just about rural issues but also urban issues.
  • Why should farmers pay for something that is a larger urban problem as well?
  • We need to check that things are happening (e.g. access to funding, Fonterra Accord, Mangakahia farmers using strips, lots being fenced etc.).
  • Integrated catchment management projects show people that change can be achieved.
  • In New Zealand the community consultation model attempts to break down the paternalistic council and is a big driver in changing misconceptions but needs to be underpinned by a regulatory stick (e.g. Local Government Act changes).
  • Morewa is an example of a place with significant public health issues.
  • It could not get a government subsidy and put pressure on funding agency to provide to community.
  • There are problems with soil types so that many systems do not work or they are expensive.

Last updated: 17 September 2007