Dialogue: Better take care or you could be in hot water

By ELEANOR BLACK

If boiling hot water were to force its way out of the earth, shoot 60m into the sky and spawn a giant cloud of mud over any other city, people would run the other way - screaming.

But when a new eruption introduced itself on to Rotorua's geothermal scene in spectacular style last week, flinging rugby ball-sized rocks into the atmosphere and instantly killing all trees within a 30m radius, rubberneckers grabbed cameras and ran towards it.

There is something in the nature of the people who live in this central North Island hotspot which makes them almost immune to the perfectly sensible fears most people have regarding the volatile natural wonders that have made Rotorua a tourism Mecca.

Watch a group of Korean visitors as they make their way around Whakarewarewa thermal reserve and you will notice the care with which they approach anything that looks vaguely hot and dangerous.

Give a Rotorua native the chance to stick his or her head down a hole full of mud which has been bubbling away like a witch's cauldron for as long as anyone can remember, and they'll gladly take it.

Then they'll jump the fence meant to protect them from the hot springs that border Pohutu geyser and dip their hands in water you could cook your dinner in to see how long they can stand to leave them there.

I am not making this up - I have seen people do this and I won't quickly forget it.

Even more impressive is a drive down Tarewa Rd, next to Kuirau Park, home to Rotorua's latest eruption, to look at the houses that sit on the edge of a huge underground boiler. How gutsy are these people? They live a stone's throw from one of the most active geothermal areas in the country and they carry on as if it weren't even there.

Steam rises from the stormwater system and into the street, creating little white clouds next to the footpath. It forms an eerie backdrop for clothes hanging on the line. And halfway down the street, billowing steam moves right on to the sections and takes over.

Four homes in Tarewa Rd are gone, replaced by steam vents and empty space. Two were moved to less combustible sites and two others had to be destroyed.

Anyone who wanted to build in the road today would need a special consent from the district council, under section 36 (ii) of the Building Act, which would make it near to impossible to get home insurance. Since the act was passed in 1991, no such application has been made to the council.

But a retirement village is being built in Tarewa Place, just around the corner. An engineer's report has declared the area safe and the council has given it the green light.

How wise is this? Even the experts don't know how big the next eruption will be, or when. There is no device available which can predict geothermal surges and, therefore, no real warning before a major eruption, such as last Friday's blowout.

Two or three minutes before Mother Nature decided to enliven her afternoon, a group of tourists and locals were drawn to the explosive spot, where bubbling water was merrily spurting out of the ground, by the photo opportunity it presented. Luckily they lost interest before the whole thing burst or they would have lost their lives.

Volcanologists have floated the idea that the next major eruption at Kuirau Park will probably not be for another 30 years, considering the last was in 1966. They are cautious because they say they just can't be sure.

So if the people who study such things can't guarantee that the city won't soon be treated to another major outburst, how smart is it for the rest of us to walk boldly among geysers and hot springs which, while fenced off by humans, cannot be controlled by them?

Given the unpredictable nature of the region's geothermal activity, perhaps it is time to stop being so cavalier about an awesome force we don't fully understand.

Sure, the geysers and mud pools are great for tourism - they are a marketer's dream.

They look fantastic on a postcard and it's fun to tell the folks at home about a morning spent traipsing through the gates of hell.

But try marketing your way around a catastrophic eruption which kills more than a handful of trees.