NRC ‘continues to waste our money’
Russell Mooring Owners and Ratepayers has accused the Northland Regional Council of “once again wasting ratepayers’ dollars” for a “feel good vanity project that accomplishes nothing”.
Mooring owners and ratepayers had been asked to pay an additional biosecurity fee for nearly two years to finance what spokesman Klaus Kurz described as an an unfair, ineffective, inefficient, impractical and vexatious venture, doomed to failure from the very beginning.
“The council’s CEO, Malcolm Nicolson, says the council is not under the impression that it can eradicate (Mediterranean) fanworm from Northland waters, but it still believes it would be fair to waste ratepayers’ money on something that cannot be achieved.
“On a lost battle? With their recent rehashed ideas about ‘better ways to stop marine pests,’ they are suggesting exactly this,” Mr Kurz said.
“In their September 2018 report they stated: ‘Around $100,000 of ratepayers’ money has been spent on diver effort to delimit areas, looking at mooring blocks, seafloor transects, vessels, etc . . . Significant range extension of Mediterranean fanworm was detected at Opua, previously only established in Whanga¯ rei.’
“Now, in April 2019, only months later, they again have to concede that their divers have found ‘juvenile fanworms, which complicates the eradication attempt’, although eradication is not possible. This is a blatant discrepancy.
“On April 23 NRC staff and crew of the pilot boat Waikare cleaned a starboard hand marker buoy on Opua wharf with a waterblaster.
“The buoy was heavily fouled with barnacles, algae, sponges, tube worms and who knows what else.
“Everything was flushed directly into the water, and boaties ask themselves why they have to pay a heavy fine for doing what even the NRC apparently considers irrelevant, given the undeniable fact that nature spreads marine organisms too, and not only in summer, when the NRC’s divers prefer to operate, but also in winter, every day, every hour and every minute.”
The insufficiency of the council’s approach to dealing with the difficult matter of marine pests spreading was revealed by the cruise liner Viking Sun’s visit to the Bay of Islands, Mr Kurz said.
One of 64 cruise liners to visit over the last season, the Viking Sun, had anchored off Russell on March 7 having sailed directly from Bora Bora, and having had its last hull inspection in Valparaiso on February 11.
“There the big ship must have been inspected very superficially, if at all, in one of the dirtiest ports of South America, and then sailed across a large part of the South Pacific, probably bringing marine pests to Northland waters, although its agents had supplied the necessary documentation of a pestfree hull,” he added.
The organisation also argued that there was no evidence to support the council’s claim that hull fouling was responsible for at least 75 per cent of pest introduction, that claim being made even less plausible by the council’s listing of all but one of 20 high-risk marine pests as capable of being dispersed by tidal streams and currents.
“In their own reports and Pest Control Hub they state that Mediterranean fanworm larvae can spread over 20km naturally, and that the Asian paddle crab is capable of swimming long distances. Cawthron Institute also confirms this. It appears that the NRC’s biosecurity team completely ignores local knowledge and experience.”