Philippa Stevenson: Good fortune is springing up in Putaruru

COMMENT

The craze for bottled water may have swept all of the country except for one town - Putaruru.

A bottled water seller would be ludicrously redundant in the South Waikato town that bottles around 70 per cent of the bottled water guzzled in New Zealand.

All the good folk of the former timber town need to do to get exactly the same stuff is to turn on their taps.

This week, Putaruru is celebrating its good fortune by staging its second annual water festival.

Last year's event ran over a weekend but enthusiasm and an increase in the number of events have given rise to seven days of activities this year.

The festival began on Saturday with a champagne breakfast official festival opening at the awe-inspiring Blue Spring on the Waihou River.

A great gush of crystal liquid, the Blue Spring is one of the largest of many springs that create the Waihou. The cold, clear water that pushes up through the gravel of the river bottom has not seen the light of day for up to 100 years.

Between 50 and 100 years ago it fell as rain on the nearby Mamaku Ranges, and percolated its way through the Earth's surface.

The Blue Spring water pours out of the fern-fringed notch in the riverbank at the rate of 42 cubic metres a minute - enough to fill a 25m, six-lane swimming pool in around 12 minutes.

All of the river's water has the same crystal clarity, making it look deceptively shallow. If you were willing to brave its chilly 11C temperature you would soon find that what looked like a depth of half a metre was more like two metres.

On Saturday, it seemed best to marvel at the beauty of the plant life wafting in the flow, wonder at the might of the spring and enjoy the slap-up breakfast provided by the Putaruru Rotary Club.

Invited to speak on the environmental state of the nation, Conservation Minister Chris Carter's words accurately reflected local ambition to "use water to define the district".

New Zealanders needed to value the biodiversity that makes our islands unique for the sake of the environment but also to preserve an economic asset and the health and wellbeing of people, he said.

There could be no better example of people valuing what they have and working to preserve and improve their environment and economy than the particular stretch of Waihou riverbank on which the minister stood.

As he spoke, he rested a hand on a tangle of pipes rising from and returning to the ground like gigantic worms.

Slightly upstream a small, pale green, weatherboard building bears a plaque proclaiming that the pipes have supplied water to Putaruru since 1991.

From here the Blue Spring is fed to bottled water suppliers and into the town's plumbing.

And the spring is just one of the scenic spots along the 5.2km Te Waihou Walkway - a triumph of local farmer initiative and community support.

Led by farmer Stewart Edmeades, whose family settled in the region in 1938, landowners whose farms border the river have fenced most of the track's length over the past five years.

Putaruru High School's Year 13 geography class of 1998 did a walkway feasibility study and successfully raised funds from Environment Waikato and the South Waikato District Council.

A year after the first revegetation planting was done Prime Minister Helen Clark opened the completed track in April 2000.

Every year, school pupils return to plant more trees while throughout the year they, other locals and tourists walk, camp, fish and generally dally along the picturesque walkway.

One farming family, the Grays, are in the process of conserving a 2ha-walkway block in memory of their husband and father, Bill Gray.

They have fenced, planted native trees, installed a welcome toilet on the site, and have plans to build a large shelter for group camps.

The walkway runs between Whites Rd (State Highway 28) and Leslie Rd, northeast of Putaruru.

You won't need bottled water to slake your thirst. A cup will do.

The Putaruru Water Festival is part of Waikato's Festival of the Environment running until March 21.

* Email Philippa Stevenson