John MacDonald: The environmental disgrace beneath our feet

OPINION:

Today, the school students are out on the streets for another climate change strike.

And, while they’re doing that, there’ll be an environmental disgrace happening beneath their feet. Those of them in Christchurch, anyway.

Because it’s been revealed that, because of leaky pipes, we’ve lost 14 billion litres of water in a year, or 38 million litres a day, in Christchurch. Twenty-seven per cent of our water, gone without a trace.

Pure, unchlorinated water - which pretty much everyone in Christchurch likes to think is the best water in the country, if not the world. Pure, unchlorinated water that is just disappearing into the ground because of the crumbling infrastructure.

Let me take you back to 2019, when thousands of people took to the streets in Christchurch protesting against two water bottling plants getting free access to aquifer water, sticking it in bottles, and shipping them overseas.

There were two outfits - Cloud Ocean Water and Rapaki Natural Resources - and between them, they had consents allowing them to extract 8.8 billion litres of water, using old consents issued years ago when the site they did their bottling on was a wool scouring plant.

So in some ways, clever them for spotting a loophole and making the most of it. It should never have happened, of course. Which is why people were so upset about it and why thousands took to the streets in protest.

Fast forward to today, when we’re learning that the amount of water lost in Christchurch last year because of decrepit pipes was 14 billion litres. I’m wondering if you’re as upset about that as you were about the water-bottling plants.

Because, as these stats show, we’re losing nearly twice the amount of water through leaks as we were losing because of the water bottling.

But where are the howls of protest over this?

As I say, the students are going to be out on the streets protesting today - demanding more action from the Government on climate change.

But I actually think they’re targeting the wrong people. I think they should be marching to the Christchurch City Council building and demanding greater action from the council on this environmental disgrace happening beneath our feet.

Water is pouring into the ground because of crappy infrastructure. In 2018, it was 9 billion litres. Last year, in 2022, it was 14 billion litres.

This in a city that, just under three years ago, declared a climate change emergency. Remember that? It was May 2019, and the Christchurch City Council announced it was joining cities all around the world and declaring an emergency.

All the talk was about reducing carbon emissions, But how can it possibly defend the situation we’re in now, with truckloads of water just disappearing because the infrastructure isn’t up to scratch?

Which does seem nuts, doesn’t it, when you consider all the work done after the earthquakes to fix the pipes. Yet, here we are, with the numbers that show the problem is getting worse.

And that is what the climate protesters should be condemning today on their climate change march. Sure, demand more from the Government. But, I tell you what, the Government is Greta Thunberg compared to the council.

It is an absolute disgrace. Especially when you stick your head up and look beyond the boundaries of Christchurch, Canterbury and New Zealand. When you look up and read reports by the likes of the UN, which says there is a global water crisis.

We get all upset about food waste these days, don’t we? And, generally, that’s because it feels so wrong to be chucking out food when there are people going hungry.

So why don’t we feel so bad about chucking away perfectly good water? Because that’s what we’re doing. It is an environmental disgrace.