Creek clears but life ‘sucked out’

A business owner has been told to stop discharging a liquid which is thought to have contaminated a Marlborough creek, depleting it of oxygen and killing wildlife.

A Marlborough District Council spokesman said it issued an abatement notice to the commercial property on April 8, after identifying it as the ‘‘potential source’’ of the contaminants in Renwick’s School Creek.

The business, which could not be identified while being investigated, was told it to stop the discharge and associated activity, he said.

Renwick residents noticed a smell and an orange, oily sludge appear in the creek, which runs through many backyards, in early April.

Seven complaints were made to the council as the smell intensified and wildlife like eels and fish died.

The council spokesman said the liquid being discharged was found to have a high biochemical oxygen demand level, that led to oxygen depletion in the creek. This resulted in bacterial growth which caused the sludge to appear, with the lack of oxygen affecting some aquatic species.

Nicholson St resident Alex Adams, 18, and neighbour Kyle Everest rescued about nine eels from the creek before releasing them in the Wairau River. But ‘‘pretty much everything’’ else had died, Adams said.

‘‘It’s much clearer than it was,’’ he said last Wednesday, but it was still a bit ‘‘foamy’’ in parts. It seemed to be starting to recover, but looked like ‘‘the life has been sucked out of it’’, he said.

A council enforcement officer had inspected the creek and the site of the potential source of the contamination a number of times since.

The officer visited multiple addresses along School Creek on April 20 to observe the condition of the creek following the rainfall over the weekend, and found the oily orange sludge had dispersed from all the locations inspected, with only minor remnants where it was caught up in vegetation.

The water in the creek appeared to be clear and the odour had ‘‘largely dispersed’’, the spokesman said.

The property had ‘‘fully complied’’ with the conditions of the abatement notice, the spokesman said. Laboratory results were still pending, before further enforcement action could be considered.