Tasman swim spots ‘envy’ of NZ
The water quality at popular swimming spots across Tasman District last summer would be the envy of other regions in New Zealand, Tasman District councillors have been told.
Council environment and planning manager Dennis Bush-King on Thursday told the operations committee that monitoring of 20 freshwater and coastal sites over the 2019-20 season revealed swimmability rates that would again ‘‘be the envy of any other regional council’’.
‘‘The average swimmability rate across the country is under 70 per cent – and we’re getting in the high 90s and we’ve consistency done that over the years,’’ Bush-King said.
‘‘People can be reassured that our rivers and our beaches are good places to swim over summer.’’
Councillor Kit Maling said the results told a ‘‘really good news’’ story compared with other regions. However, Tasman District had an advantage ‘‘because a lot of our rivers come through national parks’’, he said.
A council staff report by resource scientist Trevor James on the results reveals a dry-weather compliance rate of 99 per cent at the eight freshwater and 12 marine sites across Tasman District sampled between mid-November 2019 and March 2020.
The sites were tested for faecal indicator bacteria with a total of 448 samples taken. Of those samples, there were 15 ‘‘alarm/red’’ exceedances of the national microbiological water quality guidelines at 12 swimming sites. Of those 15, only one – at the Roding River on January 21 – was taken during fine weather. Despite investigation, no explanation could be found for that non-compliance result.
Another four exceedances related to high tide. For all the samples, taken in all weather conditions, about 96.7 per cent met the guidelines.
Bush-King said despite the good results, there were still a ‘‘few issues’’.
However, ‘‘when you get up to 96-97 per cent, the cost of dealing with the last 3-4 per cent is disproportionately high’’.
Golden Bay ward councillor Chris Hill outlined concern about Tukurua Stream, which had exceedances in the past but was dropped from the monitoring programme at the end of the 2018-19 season.
‘‘This is because, according to the campground managers, very few people swim in that small stream now,’’ Hill said, quoting James’ report before adding: ‘‘I’m not surprised they’re not swimming in there because of the state of it.’’
In his report, James says there has been a large, sustained effort to address the problem. ‘‘Without a programme . . . to ensure that septic tanks get checked every two-three years, as well as regular farm checks . . . the expense for council is considered out of proportion to other catchments that also deserve attention,’’ he says.
Hill said that didn’t seem ‘‘quite right to me’’.
Bush-King said farmers upstream had ‘‘done all they can to try and minimise any risk from bovine sources’’.
‘‘We have checked septic tanks for all the properties upstream and we haven’t been able to track it,’’ he said. ‘‘The beach is fine; it’s just the stream going to the beach.’’
Hill said she was also concerned about gathering kai from Pohara Beach.
A permanent warning sign has been installed at the outfall of Pohara Creek onto Pohara Beach due to the prevalence of high faecal bacteria concentrations in that creek.
‘‘Quite a small amount of rain elevates that and I assume that’s a septic tank,’’ Hill said.
‘‘I would never gather seafood off Pohara Beach.’’
Meanwhile, toxic algae levels never exceeded interim guidelines at monitored sites over the 2019-20 season. No dog deaths have been recorded since 2010 that were likely to be due to toxic algae.
‘‘People can be reassured that our rivers and our beaches are good places to swim over summer.’’