Waituna Farmers United - the farmers' perspective - |
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The importance of Ruppia 7 December 2011:
I was distressed to see the Tuesday evening TV3 piece on the Waituna Lagoon. In my opinion, if it wasn't for the longshore drift that keeps closing it off, Waituna would be classed as an estuary - always open to the sea!
The whole point of making it a RAMSAR area was for those 18 species of migratory birds who are waders and need clean tidal mudflats to feed on after flying halfway round the world. They do not need 300mm depth of algae and pollution.
* Ruppia Megacarpus - the good stuff: A saline species which flourishes in the deeper parts and;
* Ruppia Polycarpus - a fresh water species that prefers shallow water, such as bottled-up tidal mudflats. This does not result in the preferred environment for birds, sea-run trout or flounders. Nor is it a spawning ground for whitebait!
Forget about the freshwater Ruppia that only harbours algae and traps sediment. All it does is make stinking mud.
There is no point in spending money on re-engineering the streams to try and stop sediment. At best we can mitigate the damage that was done by the Catchment Board decades ago!
Instead, spend the $3.5m on a breakwater of sheet piling, or some such, to divert the long-shore drift further out to sea. This would keep the entrance open, and let Old Father Neptune do the best and cheapest permanent cleanup job ever.
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