Liz March 24th, 2009

Some info from Metrowater:

Metrowater manage the creek on behalf of Auckland City who own Meola and four other urban streams on the Auckland isthmus:

The Meola Creek catchment is predominantly under residential land use
with small area of light industry and commercial use, such as St Lukes
shopping centre.
Stormwater disposal via soakage to the underlying volcanic aquifer
occurs across much of the catchment.  This recharges the aquifer, from
which groundwater discharges into Meola stream to the south of the
groundwater divide and, by virtue of the outflow from Western Springs,
into Motions Creek north of the divide.  In the remainder of each
catchment stormwater is piped through the combined stormwater/wastewater
system from which wastewater overflows can occur during some events.

Meola Reef Reserve and land to the south of Meola Road between the two
creeks (Meola and Motions) was previously a landfill.  Although the
landfill has been closed since the 1970’s, leachate discharges have
continued, leading to a current programme of landfill remediation.

Meola Creek has value as a public amenity and an aquatic ecosystem.
Consequently, knowledge of the water quality and the level of
contamination contributed by stormwater and wastewater inputs is
important for the management of the stream.

Metrowater and Auckland City Council have commissioned many studies to
establish baseline water quality conditions in multiple Auckland
Streams.  The results of these studies can then be compared to future
monitoring results to identify the extent of any changes over time.

For extra info about Meola and water catchments in Auckland City:

The most comprehensive source was published in 2001: Auckland City Drainage System Resource Consents Assessment of Environmental Effects

http://www.metrowater.co.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aee_contents.pdf

There are 14 separate chapters published on the web – by Metrowater…  here is one
http://www.metrowater.co.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aee_chpt07.pdf
You can search by chapters and there is an index – they are all similarly
named. Chapter 7 is in fact the biological environment – and chapter 8 is the assessment of environmental impacts. There are also more references.

Aspects of drainage and issues and the new Roy Clements Treeway Boardwalk Project

www.nzsses.auckland.ac.nz/conference/2008/papers/Clarke.pdf

A general introduction to Meola Creek which includes some stormwater
info…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meola_Creek

For general information on stormwater and understanding stormwater and
stormwater systems and issue visit the ARC website/page:
http://www.arc.govt.nz/environment/water/stormwater/stormwater_home.cfm

Other references

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