stephen July 8th, 2010

On a wet Sunday afternoon 4th July I stood beneath the trees on the lava strewn hillock to the north of the Kerr Taylor Reserve to do our first 1 hour bird count for the annual Garden bird survey run by Landcare Research. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biocons/gardenbird/

We had a slow start on the wetland. But looking south to the newly planted “habitat area” with a few meagre young native grasses planted in lawn – a group of blackbirds was hard at work. They kept me entertained for half an hour – and if the people in the brick apartments wondered who was standing under the trees looking their way with binoculars, none of them came out to find out.

A solitary chaffinch flew by, and the number of blackbirds in the open habitat area increasd to 6. A loan grey seagull wheeled overhead. A large cat slowly walked from the weir to Kerr Taylor reserve, staying dry using the boardwalk as a shelter from the rain.

With 10 minutes to go I heard singing – then louder; and a man and woman came walking south along the boardwalk in the misty rain, singing a waiata. A magical close out to the hour.

Thanks Eden Albert Community Board and Te Ngahere for the recent historic plantings of the Kerr Taylor reserve. The blackbirds certainly spent the time in the habitat area. Perhaps next year our pukeko, ducks or shags will show up in the wetland to be counted.

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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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Liz October 24th, 2008

I have a concern about the safety of both children and wildlife at the sewer outfall behind Haverstock Rd, Mt Albert.

On Tuesday 21 October we saw a young boy (under 10) climbing on the outfall in Kerr-Taylor Reserve which is next to a house. This is the place where the sewer overflows from 96 Haverstock Rd emerge, and the stream here can be highly polluted.

When we reached it there were two young boys climbing down. They were looking at the dead pukeko lying there, and a second pukeko attending to the dead one. The young boy broke a bottle and starting climbing down further with some broken glass in his hand. We told him the water was very dirty, and we said how sad it was the bird was dead. He came back up.

We waited while the bird walked away. We noticed its tail feathers were all removed or cut off. We contacted SPCA – who said they are unable to do much.

We are concerned about this and think we need to see if there is more required to prevent children from going into the sewer outfall. We contacted Metrowater who removed the dead bird. We also asked them whether clearer signs are needed.

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