Meet with Fleur Mathews from the ORC last week on the Manuherikia. As many of you will know she is driving the proposed changes to the permitted activity and is what we are fighting by way of our givealittle page.
Long story short - Fleur is actually a reasonable individual. She has know clue how a dredge operates or why it is so important wee keep our permitted activity.
I showed her a working dredge and how it operates including her putting her hand up the powerjet while it run showing it causes no disturbance to fish. Also showed her tomatoes going up the nozzle unharmed and proving any fish that do go up no ham is caused.
She was surprised at how quiet and how little sediment was created and got to show her fish feeding of the back of the dredge . Will post some pics
There is a chance that they may drop the attack on us and I have suggested we are open to dialogue and to work out a pragmatic solution
Updates on freshwater ecologist findings to be supplied soon to you all
That sounds like a very positive display. Well done with the education. I suspect a lot of people involved in the legislative don’t have much of an idea of what small scale suction dredging is, even many of the people admin’ing claims at NZPAM.
Awesome job Chris – they clearly didn’t know how it works! We do and we do it sustainably – we are here to have a great time and look after nature in the process. I don’t know about anyone else but we clean up all the garbage we find bring it home and recycle it. Well done representing us little guys.
Great work. Loved the bit about the tomato! My husband doesn’t see that much fish life around when dredging but when he does, they are usually hanging around him looking for tidbits that he has unearthed.He once had a claim in the Wakamarina River and it wasn’t unusual to spend 4 days dredging down to bedrock, only for Mother Nature to fill it back in in a day. There is nothing more disturbing to river beds than Mother Nature herself.
As you requested, I provided feedback to Otago Council on the the proposed changes on my husband’s behalf. He doesn’t do computers. I am pleased to see you have gained some traction.Keep up the great work.
but there is a permitted rule now added deeper in the plan, which is a lot more complex and restrictive that the existing rule. I suspect this is a result of ORC water expert Pete Ravenscroft, and the advocacy pushed by Chris P on here…
First thing, there is new information and some of it is conflicting.
There is a statement that all suction dredging will require consent, yet there is also a permitted activity rule (part of it is shown above)
It seems reasonable as it captures sports fish spawning seasons but also states it needs to be outside threatened fish areas and outstanding water bodies. A link to the maps is below: https://otago.isoplan.co.nz/eplan/property/0/0/61
what this means is, there are some improvements. I have a snip of part of the Nevis as an example below. The entire nevis and its tribs were caught by schedule 7 in the current plan and needed consent. This was due to the threatened fish. ORC now realises they are only in the tributaries and consent will remain to be required here as Fish & Games trout have gobbled up all the taonga native fish. For some rivers, they also have outstanding water bodies, where consent is also required. The Nevis is included here too as shown in the darker brown line.
Have done more research. The initial position was all dredging needed consent - this is described in the s32A report and was as I understand it a response to Iwi’s views about bed distrubance.
Now, the proposed rules enable mining in some rivers as a permitted activity. This could change through the process, and I am sure Iwi will push against it. But right now, some dredgers will benefit from it and not need a consent (and can surrender their consents and some that are permitted now will require consents.
We have a plan, and those who contributed to the fighting fund will hear about that very soon.
that’s what’s needed aye!
