Effluent poser delays tribunal

Press, 26 July 1984, Page 24

Effluent poser delays tribunal

PA Rotorua A request for more time to answer a question — one which could be the crux of the matter before the Waitangi Tribunal — has been granted by the tribunal at Rotorua. The Waitangi Tribunal, meeting at Te Takinga marae, Mourea, east of the city, is hearing evidence against the proposal to discharge treated sewage effluent into the Kaituna River. Treated sewage is now pumped into Lake Rotorua which has bqen showing signs of eutrophication for about 20. years. However, last year the Rotorua District Council won a water right which would allow the pipeline proposal to proceed. Lake Rotorua is linked to

nearby Lake Rotoiti by the Ohau channel and the Kaituna River empties out of Lake Rotoiti, the water of which is also starting to deteriorate in quality.

The Maori people, in particular the Ngati Pikiao, a sub-tribe of Te Arawa, say that the discharge would despoil and desecrate the river from which they gather food and along which are many sacred burial grounds. A member of the threemember tribunal, Judge Durie, asked Ngati Pikiao and a Rotorua Maori elder, Mr S. T. Newton, one of the claimants, to explain why food from the Kaituna River would, after the pipeline was in action, become unacceptable when the waterways into which the effluent was now going were still harvested for

food. The Judge posed the question just before lunch and asked Mr Newton to think about it during the adjournment. When the hearing resumed Mr Newton asked for an extension of time and this was granted. .Mr Newton had given evidence to the tribunal for most of the morning session, concentrating his argument on the traditional value of the river as a food source. In an exhibit to the tribunal, he displayed a selection of food items taken from the river and the Makatu estuary, on the east coast, into which it flows, These included freshwater eel, whitebait, and a variety of shellfish. Mr Newton also argued for land disposal of the effluent. He said he had

seen irrigation schemes in the United States which used treated effluent.

Suggestions he had made for that alternative to be studied had not met with any response, he said. Mr Newton told the tribunal that his people also objected to the proposed sites for pipeline emergency discharge valves. One of these was near the Waiohewa marae, on the banks of a stream by the same name, and another was at the Ohau channel, about 200 metres from where the tribunal was sitting.

In evidence given by a Maori Affairs executive officer, Mr J. P. Malcolm, the tribunal heard that the treating of the effluent would make little difference.

“The mental association

or image with human waste would still be there,” he said. Counsel representing other parties at the hearing were asked by the tribunal to curb their enthusiasm for cross-examination. Mr P. B. Temm, Q.C., Auckland, said the hearing was being held in Te Takainga meeting house so that the Maori claimants could speak freely in their own environment. Questions which had English logic running headlong into Maori spirituality were of no help at all to the tribunal, Mr Temm said. “It only serves to illustrate the problem we already have,” he said. The hearing now looks almost certain not to finish by the end of the week and is likely to be reconvened later.