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Speaker 1: So in the drivetime show ran about six pm Friday,

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Speaker 1: I interviewed representative of oyster farmers in the Mahorangi area

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Speaker 1: who were outraged at a wastewater dump by Watercare that

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Speaker 1: had poisoned all the oysters. They have to close because

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Speaker 1: of this dump. They have to close for twenty eight days,

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Speaker 1: close down their business. One farmers had to dump eighty

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Speaker 1: thousand oysters. That is not good for business, that's not

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Speaker 1: good for their cash flow. And as the interview went on,

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Speaker 1: I found out that this is not an isolated incident.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it's happened wait for this, thirty nine times

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Speaker 1: this year. And even worse, apparently Watercare has the right

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Speaker 1: to do a dump like this two hundred times every year.

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Speaker 1: I was flabbergasted. That's a lot of dumping into a river,

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Speaker 1: of a lot of wastewater that's killing the oysters in

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Speaker 1: the mullets. And then on the weekend I actually got

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Speaker 1: a personal call from a local MP and she told

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Speaker 1: me the Watercare basically wrote their own consent, they needed

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Speaker 1: to involve public consultation. Yet all they did was drop

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Speaker 1: some leaflets at the walk With Library, so nobody knew

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Speaker 1: this was happening. She raised the issue with the mare

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Speaker 1: the man who wants to make Auckland a global city,

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Speaker 1: and mister fix It didn't seem at all interested in

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Speaker 1: fixing it. And so now they dump the region's waste

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Speaker 1: water into the Maharanngi River and they're allowed to do

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Speaker 1: that two hundred times a year. It's killing the river,

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Speaker 1: it's destroying the oyster business. It's desibated commercial fishing in

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Speaker 1: the area. So it's a bit of a symptom of

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Speaker 1: intensification because Walkwith's going off. It's a symptom of the

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Speaker 1: infrastructure being unable to cope with the new demand. We

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Speaker 1: build the houses, we don't make the infrastructure. And it's

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Speaker 1: a symptom of a council not having enough money to

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Speaker 1: fix the problem and not having enough desire to help

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Speaker 1: the effective businesses and not wanting to rescue a wrecked river.

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Speaker 1: And honestly, I'd rather go and swim in the River

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Speaker 1: Thames in London or the sand in Paris than swim

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Speaker 1: in the Maharrangi in rural North Auckland. And isn't that

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Speaker 1: a shame? This issue has been swept under the carpet

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Speaker 1: by water Care and the authorities and it's frankly just

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Speaker 1: not good enough because day by day, clean green functioning

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Speaker 1: New Zealand is becoming a myth and a lie we

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Speaker 1: all like to tell. For more from Early Edition with

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Speaker 1: Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it Be from

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Speaker 1: five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio