From the Mayor

Martin Connelly

I have just returned from watching a Rugby League game at the Sports Hub. This was a big day for our Rugby League club, which hosted the Wellington Rugby League Master games here in Featherston. There were teams from all over the Wellington Region. In the evening there will be celebrations, a Hangi and a Prize Giving. Well done to the club for its excellent organisation, and well done to everyone, especially those with Gold Cards, who has turned up to have some fun and stretch their legs! There is no age barrier to having a good time.

By the time this edition of the Phoenix comes out, the Council will have set its rates for the year. I regret to report that the rates have been set at a higher rate that I would like. There are two reasons for this happening:

1. The clearly expressed views of people who responded to our recent consultation and said the Council needed to spend more on Water Infrastructure than we, the Council, had proposed doing.

2. The state of our Wastewater plants.

We have had problems with the Featherston Wastewater plant for some time, and I suspect most people reading this will know about those problems. But more recently problems have emerged with the plants in Greytown and Martinborough. The Martinborough plant has reached capacity, no more connections are allowed to be joined to it. It requires cleaning (or ‘desludging’) and it has an abatement notice. This is a legal instruction requiring us to operate the plant in accordance with its resource consent. If we ignore the abatement notice, we may find ourselves receiving a hefty fine.

Desludging should occur round about every ten years, but we understand that the Martinborough pond has never been cleaned. Thus, the need to make progress quickly.

In normal times we never worry too much about what goes down the toilet, we just assume that someone else is taking care of it. A recent forum in Greytown reminded people that in times of emergency, however, we need to be able to take care of our own waste. In particular, following a major earthquake we all need to be prepared to manage our own poos and wees for at least a month.

Our local Emergency Management Office has more to say on this topic here www.wremo.nz/get-ready/home-ready/emergency-toilets/ Many people advocate the use of the “two bucket’ system in these types of emergency. That is one of the options described on this web site.

The logo on the Featherston Rugby League Club’s jersey. It depicts a special dog, the kurī (or Polynesian dog) that Kupe brought with him on his journey to New Zealand. Why not learn more about Kupe and his kurī and their interesting connection to Featherston.