Beware when smoke gets in your eyes . . . lungs and blood

"The fact is a flawed E. coli testing regime in 2017 led to the chlorination of Napier’s water supply in May 2017. "

HBRC a few weeks ago came out with a statement on compliance re pollution and such. Couple of days went by and I noticed a few fires, still day, smoke on the slow drift up, then an inversion layer smoke drifted off in a horizontal fashion, ah the smell of wood smoke.

The smoke that Rex Graham saw was huge, out Haumoana way, you could see it for miles.

Had the thought of Rex ringing the pollution line, why not.

Yes the smoke is certainly not good for you PM10 and then there is the stuff that really gets into you PM2.5 deep into your lungs. And if you’re breathing hard, gets deep into your lungs then enters your blood stream and visits every organ in your body, even found in a placenta, blood takes 23 seconds to travel around the body, and off we go again, running, bike rides and such best left for non polluting days.

Facts about global warming and sea level rise are making news almost by the day, 10 times faster, 50 years sooner, and much more, you need to know where to look. HBRC you need to get the PM2.5 out there.

Geoff Harman Havelock North

Flawed science

In 2008 I met up with both prospective Member of Parliament candidates, Chris Tremain and Stuart Nash, to outline the flawed science underpinning global warming. What has ensued in subsequent 11 years? Global warming became climate change, then climate change became climate emergency, flawed science became fraud science and oxymorons increased as honest scientist joined honest politician.

But wait — the good news! Very soon I will be able to dig out and dust off my copy of the 1978 manifesto where scientists portend the onset of the next ice age. But we must have a label: Okay as we have had a Maunder Minimum how about a mumbling minimum — mumbling from politicians and scientists with egg on their face. Collin Blackman

Bay View

E. coli fear

Many elderly residents are fearful that “another Havelock North” outbreak is imminent here in Napier.

Acting Mayor Faye White will have raised the anxiety levels with her recent claim that Napier faces the same risk as Havelock North did in August 2016. (HBToday June 29.)

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact is a flawed E. coli testing regime in 2017 led to the chlorination of Napier’s water supply in May 2017. At the time Mayor Bill Dalton explained that the council had changed from standard testing to enumerated testing which meant a reading for E. coli was given between 0 and 10. “Previously staff would only tell us if the count got above 10 but now we action when it is one. The next count is 0.” (HBToday May 25, 2017)

A second test proved negative but, regardless of this fact, all of Napier’s water got chlorinated and has remained chlorinated ever since.

It appears the council panicked after the 2016 Havelock North gastro outbreak. The new, overly-sensitive testing regime was bound to show E. coli “transgressions” in 2017 — which were all “on the edge of detection” according to subsequent responses from council officers.

Pauline Doyle, Spokesperson, Guardians of the Aquifer

Flood plans

Thank you to Councillor Bailey for his response. I assume, because he has signed off as HB Regional Councillor, that he has written on behalf of HBRC.

Although this is my final communication on this topic in this forum, there are two issues.

The first is that my five questions were specific to the matter of his assertions that “rising sea levels will flood much of Napier”, only two of which he answered; that there is no time frame for Napier’s inundation, and the predictions are based on mathematical models.

I guess we can all make predictions with no attached time frame, at least we will never be wrong.

My point was, that putting rates money aside now for an event which we have no idea when it will occur, and for which I am unaware there is any plan to deal with, provides an insight (or is it incite) to the attitude to fiscal responsibility displayed by HBRC.

The money being put aside via the rates is real, against hypothetical mathematical predictions which have to date been somewhat illusory. Here is just one example:

UN Predicts Disaster if Global

Warming Not Checked

Peter James Spielmann June 30, 1989 UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A senior UN environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000 . . . He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.

To assist with Councillor Bailey’s knowledge of climate models, a previous analysis “Temperatures According to Climate Models”, showed that only one of 42 CMIP5 models was close to hindcasting past temperature fluctuations.

That model was INMCM4, (Institute of Numerical Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Science) which also projected an unalarming 1.4C warming to the end of the century, in contrast to the other models programmed for future warming at five times the rate of the past.

Secondly, Councillor Bailey references the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment report “Preparing New Zealand for Rising Seas: Certainty and Uncertainty”, in which she advises: “In particular, the report does not contain numerical estimates of the impacts of sea level rise in particular coastal areas around the country.

“Although some elevation bands are presented in maps, they do not denote coastal hazard zones, so are not suitable for including on Land Information Memoranda (LIMs).”

Despite this advice, Councillor Bailey uses that report to make his assertion on the untimed inundation of Napier.

His view appears at odds with NCC who continue with the development of Te Awa Fields subdivision where 67 homes are being built on land allegedly below current sea level.

Rather than in isolation, HBRC indulging in a meaningless gesture of declaring a climate emergency, (and somehow linking it with Nazi Germany), why not, together with your colleagues at NCC, develop a joint contingency plan which can be modified and updated over time and as circumstances change, for dealing with this possible event.

It is, more considered, more constructive, less alarmist, just a suggestion.

Rowan Ogg HBRC Ratepayer, Hastings