Brian Rudman: Sewage tipping - don't hold your breath

A week is a long time in politics. Particularly when it involves pledges to cease the dumping, by ferries, of sewage into the inner Hauraki Gulf.

In the middle of January, when I did my last annual rage about the practice, I was deluded into believing Fullers Auckland, the major offender, would be pumping into the city sewerage system by month's end, or soon thereafter.

I guess it all depends on the meaning of soon thereafter.

Auckland Regional Transport Network has now declared next Thursday, March 9, as that glorious day. But don't hold your breath.

Actually, if you're one of the long-suffering Waiheke commuters, that's crook advice. On Wednesday morning, Auckland-bound Jo Davidson found herself holding both nose and breath while cruising along on Fullers' "Superflyte" 6.40am ferry past Motuihe Island bound for the city.

The balmy morning ambience was swamped by the "particularly pungent" stench of the previous day's sewage being released into the marine park. A crewman apologised, saying they'd meant to do it on the way down when there were few passengers aboard, but said it wasn't so bad because it was "macerated."

Like many of us, Jo Davidson was both surprised and horrified to discover this was still going on.

Auckland Regional Council chairman and Waiheke resident Mike Lee was equally perturbed to get a call on Monday about a similar incident that afternoon when a Waiheke-bound ferry from the city off-loaded in the harbour before Devonport wharf.

And so it goes on.

The bedding-down period for the ratepayer-provided new $400,000 pump-out facilities at the city ferry terminal has now been dragging on for 10 months. There were problems with the quality of the toilet paper. Then there was a wonderfully old-fashioned row about who would plug in the hoses and turn on the valves.

After that, a deal had to be struck with the Hilton hotel and the other denizens of Princes Wharf, not to flush their waste into the ageing city sewers at the same time as the ferries let fly, for fear the system would overload and flood Quay St with an unmentionable mess.

Come the beginning of February, we were told the waiting would be over in two or three weeks.

Yesterday, after Mr Lee jumped up and down, the transport network gave the ARC an outline of the latest catalogue of wrong-fitting hoses and similar woes in recent weeks. With it came a pledge from the contractor that "we are committed to full operational status for at least the Waiheke and Devonport services from March 9, 2005".

Call me cynical, but it reminds me of the famously optimistic Jewish Passover toast, "Next Year in Jerusalem." That took more than 3000 years to come true.

In keeping with that optimism, who would have thought the once highly polluted Viaduct Basin would spring back to health so quickly? A few years back, the only thing you'd have caught there would have been an evil skin rash or toxic shock.

Now, zillions of dollars of upgrading later, Keith Algie, ship's manager, Dolphin Explorer, has found a population of young arrow squid thriving down there.

The experts believe these normally solitary ocean dwellers must have escaped from the nets of the resident fishing fleet.

They're just babies, around 2cm long, but growing rapidly, which, given they have to consume around double their body weight a day to grow, means there's already a developing and thriving food chain.

And before you ask, Mr Algie says his boat, which does eco tours in the gulf, has been pumping out at Westhaven since 2001. When caught short, perhaps twice a week,it does empty its holding tanks into the gulf - but always, he says, at least three nautical miles from land.

But getting back to those squid. It makes you wonder which of the waterfront restaurants will be first to offer catch-your-own calamari.