16/05/2025
Please read to the end. This is a heart felt plea.
I didn’t know this happened. Please share far and wide and sign the petition.
Hello all. It's been many a full moon since I have posted anything on this platform. However some of you have started wondering why we have not been open for yonks. Well unfortunately Warkworth has a s**t situation. Sewage. Thanks to p**s poor planning from Auckland Council and their council controlled operation Watercare. They have let the area grow out of control before the infrastructure was put in place and over the last five years what was a small sewage overflow after 100mm of rain is now a huge amount after only 10mm. This year Warkworth has had over 1000 cubic metres of overflows and that's really just since middle of April, one month. We have found through testing our oysters and waters that there is norovirus in the area we grow oysters and that has led us to be unable to harvest oysters, shutting our farms and businesses. Auckland Council and Watercare have not notified the community of this. There are no signs to tell the public that the waterways are contaminated on the wharves or boat ramps. They have classed the Mahurangi River that leads to the harbour as non recreational to allow themselves to write resource consents for these overflows. According to them nobody swims, kayaks, fishes, sails or frolics in the river, let alone harvest wild shellfish. If you, the public have a leaky septic tank or if a farmer is polluting a stream you will get either fined or imprisoned under the law yet good old Auckland Council and Watercare are above the law and are the biggest polluters in the area. There is nobody above them to fine them like other parts of the country. Yes they are building a new treatment plant and fixing Warkworth towns pipe but the permanent fix is at least two to three years away and that's too late for us and the environment. We as an association have been battling them for years to put in temporary measures to help mitigate the overflows, that has gone from...nah there isn't anything we can do to...yeah we can do something...but wait we neeed consents, which has taken far too long, they are the consentees yet they held it up and what should have been done months if not years ago hasn't even been started. There is no legal avenue to sue or get compensation because as I've said, Auckland Council have allowed themselves to be able to do this and there's no way to stop them. It's all hidden from sight with the overflow point tucked discreetly behind the Curtain shop up at Elizabeth Street in Warkworth, draining into a creek where kids often play and old boys fish for whitebait...more like brownbait.
We've had many crises over the years but none have compared to this. Most of the oyster farmers in our harbour are small, family run operations, selling at farmers markets or to wholesale operators. We don't have huge amounts of money to survive such closures and we have no ability to go after the council and Watercare. We have already tried legal avenues only to be advised we have no case. Local MP's have done their best to help and even they have no ability to bring Watercare to account for what they have done. I want to tell you all about this because the word GROWTH gets bandied about constantly but here is a situation where growth has killed an industry that's been here for fifty plus years, an industry that helps the environment through filtering the water and sequesting carbon. Growth to me is gross. I hate how cutting hills, steaming new motorways, new suburbs and terrible ugly shopping blocks leads to the apparent need to have growth. F**k that. I have been selling oysters for twenty years at the green shed. What is the price of growth when you don't care for the environment you're growing into?
The irony continues as we as oyster farmers just spent tend of thousands of dollars on getting our farm consents renewed over the last few years from Auckland Council only to be unable to produce a safe oyster thanks to their negligence.
The Ministry of Primary Industries that govern our shores have to keep the public safe and will not allow us to open until things clear up but any rain is going to cause spills so they are in a tough situation to keep the harbour open as an oyster growing area. The only thing I can do now is make some oyster soup from oysters I froze over the Summer months and perhaps try to buy some oysters from other areas up North but that's quite a difficult task. Over the next week I will try to just sell the soup and probably say goodbye to any of you that do love the place because I really doubt we will be able to survive until Watercare actually put their much promised temporary solutions in.
The thing that made me smile was being able to bring so much happiness to people who enjoyed an oyster. There's not many jobs that can bring such a moment, distant memories of being carefree by the sea and enjoying sunny days by the shore can come flowing back like a curling wave of happiness, all by a simple taste of an oyster. That's what made me love my job. I've met some beautiful friends and people and forged great relationships. I always tried my best to help others less fortunate. I always tried to give everyone a piece of my heart. There's nothing left to give now. If I have one wish it would be that Auckland Council and Watercare are never allowed to do this again to the environment. Somebody needs to regulate them to stop such events happening in the future.
Furthermore there is a petition that has been set up by Mahurangi Oysters, here is the link:
https://chng.it/JxBpXtsWjw
