Lake May Soon Be Unusable

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32314, 4 June 1970, Page 22

Lake May Soon Be Unusable

(New Zealand Press Association)

TAURANGA, June 3.

The pollution of Lake Rotorua had intensified so that the. point of no return was just round the corner, and unless something was done now the lake would become a stinking mass of algae, said the conservator of wildlife in Rotorua (Mr P. J. Burstall).

Addressing the Tauranga branch of the Organic Soil Association, Mr Burstall said that international coliform counts of the lake water samples were perilously close to the level at which it would be dangerous for humans to drink it or swim in it

Within two years the lake would not be available for swimming, and within five years trout could no longer live in it. The country would lose an annual income of $3 million unless something was done now to stop the pollution.

Lake Taupo, which was worth 89 million to the coun- ! try each year for its trout fishing and recreational faci- ! titles, faced the same fate, I he said. Mr Burstall said Lake j Eyrie, in Canada, and Lake Forsyth in the South Island. | were examples of what would happen to Lake Rotorua. “A river can be restored and rehabilitated by good management, but once a lake becomes dead, choked with aquatic plants and algae, it is lost forever. Nothing can be done with it.

“This will probably happen to Lake Rotorua and the only consolation is that it may mean the salvation of our other lakes, because then people will be able to see for themselves what I have been warning them about for the last 10 years?’

Mr Burstall said he was appalled by the apathy of the public to the situation. Addresses to his own Rotory Club in Rotorua, and the Mokoia Island Jaycee Chapter, appeared to have had no effect.

The only practical answer, he said, was for people to get round a table with experts and work out how they were going to do something about it.

“This is a young country, and it has a wasteful society. It is not prepared to face the facts that the wastes caused by our standard of living are

going to cost us all money unless we wish to live in a filthy environment,” he said.