Lower water level increases risk
Steve Lowndes’ attempt yesterday at clarifying the need to conserve water in Christchurch is appreciated.
Unfortunately, water nowadays has to be pumped from a depth determined, effectively, by the demand. To say, therefore, that the problems or supply have nothing to do with ‘‘the amount of water available in the aquifers’’ is specious. Meanwhile, the lower the level of available water the more risk there is, presumably, of contamination occurring at individual well-heads now increasingly exposed.
Also dubious is the figure (5 per cent of all water take consents) Lowndes cites for the amount of water consented for bottling in Christchurch if, at certain times, the actual take proves to be more than the infrastructure as well as public health locally can conveniently and safely bear.
Finally, for Environment Canterbury to contend that bottling our water for sale overseas is an industrial rather than a commercial use (‘‘Decades-old consents should not be used to allow for water bottling, court hears’’, Stuff, October 2) - surely is mistaken. John Hoare, Cashmere
Not enough
Water as a topic does not go away. Leanne Dalziel’s assertion that there is enough for everyone, in fact enough that we can give it away to countries that have so mismanaged their own that they now need to take ours, and make a killing in the process, and Steve Lowndes’ apologia for the Christchurch City Council, saying it is ECan that is responsible for the consents to take water for bottling and export, all miss the issue. The issue is that there is not enough water. A drive down SH1 to Dunedin in the summer, with all the irrigators going and every waterway dry, must say something. And what of all the letters commenting on the now unswimmable swimming holes of old?
Which council is responsible for what is not the issue. The issue is that water management is dysfunctional. The waterways are largely toxic, council cannot provide safe water to the residents of Christchurch, and big business has taken such a grab on water that waterways are dry. Until a charge is put on the taking of water to the benefit of the populace, this miserable situation will continue.
Julian Shorten, Reefton
Science
I would agree with Geoffrey Mentink (Oct 1) that science has a lot of the answers, but I’m not convinced it has all the answers.
I think belief has to be factored in, however you view it. I can choose to believe what scientists tell me, that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate. But they don’t tell me what it is expanding into.
Do I need to believe in an entity called the space/time continuum and picture it as the Monty Python green latticework/woman?
Surely I would need to believe that it is an entity that can contain no matter or particles whatsoever, and that the universe is creating more of it, for the finite amount of matter to expand into?
Or should I choose to believe that there is a finite amount of space/time continuum and it is merely being ‘stretched’ to accommodate the expansion?
If I believe the latter, I would also need to believe that there was a point in time, after the Big Bang, when all the space/ time continuum that was going to exist, existed.
As to the point, your guess is as good as mine.
Nick Summerhayes, St Albans
Sroubek
Mr Bridges is a fine one to be hysterically demanding Immigration Minister Lees-Galloway’s resignation, after all Karel Sroubek has been here under false pretences since 2003.
What was National doing about the situation in all that time?
It seems Mr Bridges is in the running to graduate summa cum laude from the school of Trumpesque political distraction.
Given the facts of the situation, anyone with pretences to decency might be more restrained… oh wait.
Darren A Saunders, Waltham