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THE SCARS JEWELS: TWO OF BATTLE MORE YEARS P13
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Guardian
Ashburton
www.guardianONLINE.co.nz
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
FIRST PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 1879
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Rising costs put squeeze on families By Gabrielle Stuart The rising cost of living are even driving middle class families to financial despair, say local social services. Fuel prices, food prices, power and housing prices have all risen this month, and it’s a four-punch combo that has hit local families hard, and left many relying on the community for help. Ashburton Presbyterian Support Regional manager Jackie Girvan said that several people who had visited them this month had never asked for help from social services before, and most came as a last resort. With $23.6 billion dollars dedicated to ‘social security and welfare’ in New Zealand this year, more than a quarter of the total budget, the question of how so many families could slip through the cracks needs to be asked – but there is no doubt that in Mid Canterbury, many have. She said that many simply needed help to put food on the table. “As well as people who we help regularly, lately we have seen a huge lot of people coming in off the street, feeling a little desperate. When costs go up we don’t usually see the result immediately, but several months down the track when savings are gone and things are desperate they will come in, and by then the problem has become so impossibly big it’s difficult to know where to start.” Many people had never used social services before, which could be one reason why some fell through the cracks in the system. “Often the problem is that if they don’t ask the right questions they won’t get the right answers, and they just need us to go along with them to their appointments, to make sure that the right questions
RECENT CASES Some cases seen at Presbyterian Support Mid Canterbury this month: • A young person living in a tent, no income, unsupported and too young to receive support from Work and Income. Needed food. • A father who took time off work on unpaid leave to take care of his children while his partner was sick. Exhausted his supports and couldn’t feed his three young children. • A family on a very low income, had no food to feed their children. • A family who had a child come into their care, and couldn’t afford the $26 for a birth certificate to access extra support. • A woman wanting some bread to provide school lunches. • A solo dad who took three weeks off to take care of a sick child. His work was casual, and when the child recovered he no longer had a job. • A young woman who had to leave home suddenly. Needed bedding and a heater for her new accommodation.
get asked. “For every person there’s a different reason, and there are as many reasons as there are people. We’re a last resort, and some feel a certain amount of shame because in asking for help they feel that they’ve failed to support their family.” She said Presbyterian Support would continue to do their best to help struggling families alongside organisations like the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul, but they were not a ‘bottomless pit’ and it could be a stretch to find the resources and staff to help so many. It has been a similar story for Ashburton Budget Advisory Service, where plenty of locals are turning for help as their bills get bigger. Co-ordinator Carol Brown said 59 people had visited in the past month, and the team of staff and volunteers were incredibly busy. She said many families sought budget advice as a last resort, but
the best time to get advice was as soon as they began to feel under pressure. “When you feel that you’re struggling, if you’re thinking ‘which bill am I going to pay this month’ or have opened up a bill that’s bigger than you were expecting, that’s the best time to come in and see us.” She said she had seen many locals wait to ask for help or advice until they were thousands of dollars in debt or had even had their services disconnected. Labour Party leader David Shearer raised the issue last week, saying that with all four prices jumping sharply last week, families were feeling the financial squeeze in all directions. His solution plans to lift the minimum wage, encourage investment in ‘job-creating’ businesses and restrict power price rises, but with many local families already struggling that could be too little, too late.
Photo Susan Sandys 150713-ss-02
Custodians Dace Jamison and Katie Columbus have encountered weather extremes while living on Mt Hutt this winter.
Front row seat for weather extremes By Susan Sandys Terrifying winds and huge snowstorms have all been part of the job for Mt Hutt Ski Area custodians Katie Columbus and Dace Jamison this winter. Custodians live on Mt Hutt, in the base lodge, and prepare and clean the lodge’s indoor and outdoor areas, before skiers arrive and after they leave at the end of the day. Ms Columbus, from Colorado, and Mr Jamison, from Oklahoma, are undertaking the role for the first time and say it is one which has brought them some amazing experiences in terms of weather. They were among about 10 staff on the mountain when snow started to fall on the evening of June 19. They had been joined by a road clearer, groomers and ski patrollers, who had travelled up to the mountain expecting to have to dig it out
within the next couple of days. Management were taking heed of a weather forecast and predicted up to 1.5 metres would fall on the mountain. But little did the group know just how big the storm would be – it dumped 2.8 metres of snow, caused damaging avalanches and trapped the staff for five days. “They gave us a heads up it was coming, but I don’t think they realised the magnitude of it. Nobody knew it was going to be that big,” Mr Jamison said. As day after day of the snowstorm dragged on, Mr Jamison and Ms Columbus and the other staff did as much digging out around the base lodge as they could to make sure they could still get outdoors. “We would sleep in until eight o’clock, then go out and shovel decks on the second floor, waist deep in snow. As soon as it was finished it would just cover up
again, but if we hadn’t of stayed up with it...” It was the largest snowfall for 20 years, and just a couple of weeks later the ski area hit the Mt Hutt record books again, this time for the strongest winds. Nor’westers gusted at almost 240 kilometres per hour at the summit, while at the base lodge window panes and a wall were smashed. Ms Columbus said she barely slept for two nights as the window panes of her bedroom shuddered non-stop. Mr Jamison said he was grateful during the storm that his bedroom had no windows. “But I could still hear it shake the whole building, it was pretty wicked,” he said. But he got just as much of a fright as Ms Columbus when a stairwell wall near their common room was smashed through by flying ice. “We were sitting in here and there was a huge bang and the
Sky TV froze.” Throughout the storm Mr Jamison and others went outside onto the Huber’s Hut deck to re-tie down tables, where they had to keep a low profile, literally. “If you didn’t duck down you would be blown off.” Despite their best efforts, two of the tables flung from the deck onto the lower deck, smashing two windows. Mr Jamison comes from cyclone country, but had not experienced winds like that before. The American pair love the extremes of the mountain environment, and being able to ski most days. “Back home people pay $500 per night to be able to ski out to the lift in the morning,” Ms Columbus said. “I feel it’s really cool to have experienced these extremes, and we get a front row seat,” Mr Jamison said.
Effluent ponding earns dairy farming family $25,000 fine Problems with a travelling irrigator which resulted in severe effluent ponding have cost a Hinds dairy farming family a $25,000 fine and costs of $2990.80. Drumblade Farm Ltd (Lindsay and Beverley Bagrie) was fined for breaching the Resource Management Act after an Environment Canterbury Compliance Officer made a routine monitoring visit to the property on April 17, 2012. He was told there had been an issue that morning with the travelling irrigator where a nozzle had come off. Inspection
revealed severe liquid and solid effluent ponding on the land surface, up to 80 millimetres in depth. A follow-up inspection a fortnight later revealed further severe ponding from the travelling irrigator, with depths up to 80mm, again the compliance officer was told this was because of a hose disconnect and the resulting siphoning action caused by the equipment malfunction. During a further follow-up site visit on May 9, no ponding was observed where the travelling irrigator was operating, however a
large pond containing dairy effluent was noticed. Judge Kellar said the discharge of effluent on each occasion was not expressly allowed by the resource consent because the discharge of effluent in that period did not comply with the consent conditions. He said that the defendant company had been content to leave responsibility for effluent management to the sharemilker, High Pines Ltd, (the Bagrie’s daughter, director Jo Moore) through a contractual arrangement they had put in place.
“Farm owners and consent holders must ensure they have in place supervised and properly managed processes for responsibly dealing with dairy effluent disposal. It is not sufficient to rely on compliance obligations being met solely through contractual means. Despite any agreement that may apportion liability between owner or consent holder and sharemilker, it is not possible to contract out of responsibilities under the RMA, including consent conditions,” Judge Keller said. Rather than deliberate, the
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offending had been more the result of lax practises and the failure to ensure or to recognise a responsibility to comply with the resource consent, he said. The system operated by Drumblade Farm Ltd at its Hinds dairy farm is similar to that used by 96 per cent of dairy farms in the Canterbury region – using irrigation to dispose of dairy effluent to land. Drumblade Farm has been the subject of previous investigations where effluent ponding was substantiated. It was issued with an
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abatement notice in 2007 and in 2008 there were abatement notices and formal warnings. The company had since taken steps to avoid a repeat of the problem including construction of a new pond, and having a GPS system fitted to the irrigator that sends a text message to the sharemilker/farm manager if it stops or if there is a fault, he said, but the offence that had occurred was “comparatively serious offending”. While the environmental effect was not acute in this case, it would have cumulative and adverse
effects on soils and ground water, said Kim Drummond, Environment Canterbury Resource Management director. “If consent holders leave a travelling irrigator unmonitored while it is discharging and there is a failure, they will be responsible for the unlawful discharge. Farm owners and consent holders have obligations they must understand and fulfil,” It was not sufficient for a farm owner to rely on contractural means as the sole way of ensuring compliance was met, he said.
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