Auckland local government meeting
Wednesday 1 November
Waste policy
Waste levy
- There is support for a waste levy.
- Levy allocation should be prioritised according to agreed waste management plans.
Product stewardship
- Product stewardship legislation is too slow.
- Industry should start to take responsibility for waste oil. Product stewardship legislation is needed.
Biosolids
- 300 tonnes of bio-soil is going to landfills. There is a desperate need for national direction and help from MfE to address this.
- Biosolids should be exempt from the waste levy as they are a different type of waste.
General comments
- The Ministry needs to work closely with local government to redevelop the New Zealand Waste Strategy.
- Incentives are needed to encourage uptake of desirable practices and technology.
- There should be reporting requirements for landfill operators. There is a shortage of national data.
- Money is needed for market development as identified in the 2002 Waste Strategy, and for developing regional waste strategies. Some key issues are infrastructure for green waste and market development.
National environmental standards
Contaminated land
- It is important to define the methodology for assessing contaminated land and undertake a critical analysis of different methods.
- A policy decision needs to be made on the desired level of risk (1:100000 or 1:1000?).
- The approach to contaminated land needs to be defined.
- Local government needs to take responsibility and get more involved in the process of National Environmental Standard development.
- Often territorial local authorities (TLA) do not feel responsible for cleaning up contaminated land. Policy needs to specify roles and responsibilities.
- Issues need to be picked up in the resource consent process. Tier 1 could be helpful here.
- Best practice guidelines with examples would be helpful to define TLA and regional council roles.
- It is hard to define what contaminated land is. This is changing (e.g. the Hazardous Activities and Industries List (HAIL)).
- National consistency is needed on what goes on a land information memorandum (LIM). Terminology is different across the country. Will there be further guidance or regional hazard registers?
- Territorial Local Authorities should decide on terminology as development is different in different regions. Soils also differ in different regions. Waitakere and the North Shore are different from Auckland City so there are different codes for LIMs because of the different chemicals that are used.
- Canterbury has a very detailed land use database. Is MfE doing anything about the HAIL list to look at the damages? Some HAIL activities are worse than others. National guidance is needed to help prioritise it.
- Standards should include both environmental and human health numbers. Can we have a standard that covers both? Is there a summary document that would help with environmental risk assessment? There should be a national template for resource consents. It would be useful to know how other councils deal with environmental risk assessment.
- Was it a HAIL listed property in the first place? If councils do not have resources to identify the sites, they do not know and therefore HAIL does not apply. There is a no directive to find them. Suspected sites could get included on a register but the risk is not mitigated. The public will be worried about things that may have happened years ago. It is important to re-look at HAIL and check that it is still relevant.
- Is it legal to regulate to restrict an activity in a region? Can an entire region become GE-free?
Water
Land use
- Water is all about sustainability. It is also about land use.
- Farmers take the view that they can regulate themselves on the application of fertiliser. How do Councils enforce fertiliser application through District Plans? (Rule II is a good option).
National Environmental Standards
- Local government could do with more guidance on industrial sites. There are no national standards so industry can argue they are not having effects, for example timber treatment plants. On a day-to-day basis more national guidance is needed for consents.
- Mobile phosphorus – it is difficult to know what is required for resource consents. In New Zealand every situation is up for discussion. National standards will sort this out.
- Standards for industrial contaminants are an urgent priority.
- National standards will provide a basis for controlling land use.
- Are the minimum building floor levels in coastal areas consistent across the country?
- There is a need for a national standard on septic tanks.
- National receiving water standards are needed for streams, rivers, groundwater and the coastal environment.
Stormwater management
- The RMA requires implementation of water quality systems. Consultation through LTCCP processes under the Local Government Act shows the public is not supportive of paying for this. Local government need more funding to implement stormwater treatment.
- One of Auckland’s major issues is funding for quality stormwater across its urban catchments.
- Pressures on rates control and restrict funding. A good level of stormwater treatment requires funding of $4-5 million/year.
- Stormwater is a poor relation to drinking water and sewage in terms of the funding it receives.
- Is there any thinking on “polluter pays” at a local government level?
- There is a move to look at source control (e.g. runoff from roads and roofs). It takes a huge amount of time to get through the consultation process.
- Zinc from roof runoff is a major issue. The cost of “painting the roof” to fix this is high. Would a treatment plant be a better solution?
- Zinc is highly mobile and has an effect on marine organisms in estuaries. Wellington Regional Council is looking at the District Plan to review this.
- Zinc levels in Auckland exceed some national guidelines.
- Low impact design (storm water action team) is something Auckland can set an example on.
- There are no incentives to integrate on a regional basis. Because water is being “sold” there is no reason to recycle water.
- Some of the work on investigating contamination in shellfish is promising.
- Diverting sewers from stormwater is good.
- Stormwater is a low priority issue.
- There is a struggle for raising awareness and resourcing in respect of public education for good stormwater control and disposal
- Incentives are needed for good alternatives to control stormwater.
- The creation of exposed aggregate driveways is creating huge pH issues for water quality. This is an issue in Auckland and is becoming one in Christchurch.
- Schools emptying swimming pools into stormwater is an issue.
- Stormwater is a high capacity issue that is just starting to raise its head
- Infill housing results in a reduction in the percentage of permeable land and creates a stormwater issue.
Education and information
- Better public awareness about water usage is needed.
- Resources are short for public and business education and awareness
- There needs to be an education programme and incentives to promote green roofs and rain gardens.
- Water efficiency should be encouraged nationally. This would have spin-offs for stormwater.
- Water efficiency is high in Germany due to education.
- Waitakere targeted top users to reduce water use.
- Couple policy with incentives for people to take action.
General comments
- Water efficiency supports better waste water management.
- Everyone is doing a good job they are just doing it differently. The use of guiding principles to provide directions is happening currently.
- Regional government timeframes are a lot longer than central government. The filtering down of the standard may take a decade. MfE is looking at the timing and investigating legislation to help address this “lag”.
- Regional councils ‘react’ to legislation.
- How do councils and communities deal with residential locations that are identified as flood prone or likely to be submerged under water through climate change? Guidance on what to do would be useful.
- A subsidy scheme is needed for developing potable water supplies. Do we not already have one?
Climate change
Education and information
- Communication is important to raise the profile “now”.
Adaptation and mitigation
- The tourism industry accounts for 18% of New Zealand’s GDP. How do we combat this? What can we replace tourism with?
- How can we address recreational users of fuel?
- What do we do about climate change? Do we address issues such as coastal erosion as part of climate change?
- The issue of property rights was discussed. Where does local governments’ liability lie?
- A positive is that there is more attention being given to climate change. This might lead to behaviour change.
- There is a need for diffuse energy options.
- The insurance industry will be looking at changing policy regarding coastal properties.
- Do we need to apply a catchment approach to deal with adverse events resulting from climate change?
- What happens to areas like Hauraki Plains which are already under sea level?
- We need to plan for climate change migrants.
- We need to play our part now to mitigate climate change and to future proof ourselves.
- Assets should be future proofed during the asset renewal process.
- Are we looking at a demand or supply approach?
- We need to look towards making households more sustainable.
- Much more needs to be done to make buildings more sustainable.
- The council is interested in partnering with the government to retrofit housing stock.
- Adaptation is happening but not necessarily under climate change.
- Since 2005 floods, modelling has been done to predict the future likelihood of flooding. Rainfall is likely to increase by 40% over 80 years.
- Tauranga City Council is spending $61 million on stormwater as a result of floods last year. The flooding in Tauranga personalised the issue and helped the Council to increase rates.
- Whakatane cannot afford a rates increase.
- The perception is that the extreme events are happening more regularly.
- Most debate in local papers is about the science but people do agree there is climate change.
- Different farmers face different issues e.g. Kiwifruit farmers face different issues to sheep farmers. People have to own their ideas. Farmers from the different farm types need to be engaged separately. It would be good to use ‘champions’.
- There are liability issues. What if you are wrong about sea level rise/precipitation increase?
- Maori are already on board and agree that climate change is an issue.
- In the second LTCCP outcome areas, hazards management was not raised.
- New Zealand needs something like the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP).
- Water supply is an issue on Waiheke Island. Many properties need two rain water tanks. Grey water may need to be used. What are the regulations around use of grey water? Flooding carries discharge from septic tanks into the Gulf.
- Local government cannot do all the initiatives on rates money alone. Central government help is needed. Waste levies may help.
- There is support for a stricter consents process.
- Water shortages are already occurring on Waiheke Island so regulating things such as grey water recycling and composting toilets via the district plan is an obvious measure.
- There is concern about the validity of Waitakere’s eco-city image. Nevertheless it was acknowledged that there is a lot going on in Waitakere.
- Rating bases are an important but political issue.
- Growth strategies are important for adapting for the future, and should recognise cradle to grave production and the lifetime of products.
Transport
- Funding of roads is making the transport problem worse. More attention needs to be paid to the regional transport strategy to give it teeth.
- Public transport providers need to be better integrated. Better cycle ways and more double-tracked trail routes are needed. The petrol tax should be spent locally.
- There is a huge level of car ownership in Auckland. New Zealand has the lowest commuter ratio of all OECD countries. Linkages between transport agencies need to be improved. Integration of public transport is a key goal. Public transport is not convenient enough.
Environmental reporting
General comments
- A clear indication of the purpose of the monitoring at different levels of government is needed.
- Standardized environmental monitoring policies and guidelines are needed.
- Local councils need more guidance on the development of qualitative indicators.
ENZ07
- Will ENZ07 cover how decisions are made for environmental policy? How will ENZ07 refer to local level policy (in LTCCPs)?
- Does MfE intend to set benchmarks or to reflect what council are doing at present?
- What is the overlap between national and regional level reporting for example in relation to the indicators used?
- There are problems with defining boundaries for things such as water quality – how is a polluted area defined?
- Collating regulatory data allows people to get data for the whole country from one website.
- A refined snapshot is needed to develop national policy.
Last updated: 24 January 2007
