Monday water meeting
This coming Monday, March 26, at Te Ahu Centre in Kaitaia (from 9am to 5pm) will be the start of a three day hearing to decide whether a group of 17 applicants known as the MWWUG, (Waiharara water users group) that have collectively applied to Northland Regional Council to take more than 2 million m3 of water per year will get consent.
Our group , We Are Water, on behalf of the whole community, are extremely concerned that not only is this huge amount of water unnecessary, but potentially also risks 'the peoples' shallow bores and salt water intrusion to our aquifer, our natural water source.
From all of the information we have read through, the mind-boggling process that NRC has forced the people to go through to put in a submission against this back in late November 2017 and then discover that many of us were forced out, to not be able to continue as they, NRC, decided to put a 'limited notification' on the whole process saying that those of us who did not live within a restricted area could not go any further with their submission.
We were then sent 'reject' letters and told we would not be considered any further in the submission process.
To add more insult, some members of the MWWUG went ahead anyway and planted avocado trees in early 2018, still without consent and applied to NRC for 'temporary water consent, so that they could water . . . with no public notification this time . . . they got it.
I urge anybody, any community member to stand up, rise up and be heard and make time to come to the hearing inside or outside at ‘the people’s hearing’ to tell our elected officials that we do count and we want to be heard.
Let NRC and the hearing commissioners know that you do care about your water supply and that 'the people', your community must come before commercial business, that people come before dollars.
Be prepared with a t-shirt, a sign, your voice and stand up and give your time for our aquifer water source, which has no division underneath the ground therefore there should be no division above the ground.
If nothing else come and make a stand for your kids, your mokos and the next
generation, for without water there will be no life.
The decisions that will be made over the three-day hearing will hopefully be made with accountability to the far north people and land and beaches etc that potentially will be at risk from overallocation of water, harmful chemical sprays that threaten our health and our bees and our sealife all in the name of economic development and job creation . . . sure the money is great but remember that you can’t eat or drink money. My final question to you is this. Who will be accountable for over allocation of the aquifer or potential salt water intrusion, will it be the CEO of NRC, CEO of FNDC, The Kaitaia Mayor, , MWWUG, the hearing commissioners, Matt King MP’s very brief response to my letter (Say what? Age, March 15) included the words ‘he writes’ and ‘his comments’. Given the non de plume, on what basis does Matt assume gender?
Matt ignored the more important point of my letter, and simply denied that his article (Law changes will cost jobs) spoke against improving pay and conditions for local working people- voters.