Selwyn River

Press, 25 August 1976, Page 16

Selwyn River

Sir, —I endorse Robyn Warren’s comments on the polluted state of the lower Selwyn River. Professor Knox’s “Natural History of Canterbury” blames the state of the Selwyn and Lake Ellesmere on the use of excessive amounts of fertiliser and aerial top-dressing i.. the area. This must be one of the main contributors. I doubt whether the effluent from the Upper Huts septic tank is of major importance in itself, but I imagine the river is used as a logical disposer of effluent from settlements nearby and run-offs from cowsheds etc. for many miles upstream, which gather in the sluggish waters downstream. Lake Forsyth is already a “dead lake”—home only to eels and water-skiers — and I recommend that people take a short trip out to the Selwyn River and Lake Ellesmere to see for themselves how a once beautiful locale on their back doorstep is being fast transformed into another Heathcote River. — Yours, etc. J. H. COOPER. August 22, 1976. Sir,—l agree with Robyn Warren that the Selwyn River is not the pleasant place it used to be. One of the reasons why the lower Selwyn has become so sludgy and weed-filled (apart from the destruction of willow trees along its banks) is that its waters bank up for months on end whe Lake Ellesmere’s sea outlet is not maintained. For example, about a month ago the river at the Upper Huts was practically at a standstill, and the level had risen 3|ft, causing waste expelled into it from upstream to be collected en masse in the motionless lower reaches. Then almost overnight, when the lake outlet -was opened, the river

dropped by about 3ft, leaving on each bank masses of putrefying weed which now smells' extremely foul. The weed often reaches a depth of sft and the number of parasitical insects amongst it is phenomenal; fish numbers are correspondingly small, as is bird-life in the area. — Yours, etc., G. MITCHELL. August 23, 1976.