Too much duck shovelling

Shovel-ready ‘‘infrastructure’’ projects will make little difference to the environment that suffers under the Resource Management Act. The poor state of our waterways is a testament to this fact as this is where all the results of land mismanagement and pollution end up.

The duck shovelling will be business as usual with councils supporting private profit over core infrastructure projects. Porirua City Council is supporting a piein-the-sky project instead of advocating to the Government for the upgrade of essential infrastructure in the sewage treatment plant.

This is an entrenched attitude that needs to change throughout New Zealand. Discharges to sea have been conveniently excluded from many overarching policies and statements insuring continued and increased pollution.

Titahi Bay beach has now been closed for over two months because of sewage contamination. It is far-fetched when the council assures us that a few cross connections are polluting the whole beach. Particularly when we have had no rain until recently to cause stormwater contamination.

I presume it requires the clutching at straws when currently applying for new discharge consents to continue the polluting of our beach. Such tales cannot legitimise decades of lack of investment and accountability that fails to protect one of Wellington’s most popular swimming beaches.

Tracey Waters, Titahi Bay