Bait stations
My DOC 200
Made myself a tunnel for my DOC 200
Tamaki Estuary Report Card
The 2013 Marine Report Cards are in. These report cards are awesome. We have dropped from a D to an E. The water quality and ecology have gotten worse, but this has inspired TEEF who plan to get more active. Yay!
Pt England Reserve
After initially asking the council to fence a gully at Pt England reserve to reduce erosion. I have since found NZ Dotterel and Shore Plover there.
I taked to specialists at the Ornithological Society & DOC. Then today I did a Presentation to the Tamaki Estuary Environmental Forum. Everyone was very excited and wants to help.
Now I need to socialise some designs and forge ahead. It looks like getting permission and $ should be relatively easy.
My Greenhouse
My Mother in law gave me her old plastic greenhouse. Lets see what happens to the 36 little Pohutakawa I just potted. Tho I still have a lot more seedlings to plant out.
RAIN ONLY: Drains to Sea
Tried using Mylar but it curled exactly the wrong way. Ironing helped but it did warp a little.
Even the thinner felt works, tho not quite as well, should probably have added more washers to this one.
Here is the digital file if anyone wants to signpost their own storm water drains.
Pellet Watch
Nurdles collected (between May-Jun 2013) and sent to pelletwatch.org
Collection sites
Takapuna site @-36.792585667079706,174.77987408638
Tamaki site @-36.90542586353609,174.87586833536625
Tamaki site @-36.90542586353609,174.87586833536625
South Down site @-36.929860119275695,174.8261260986328
View Larger Map
REPORT
Due to the close proximity of the samples, we have chosen 2 out of the 4 samples you sent us based on location and plastic pellet conditions.
PCBs
PCBs are industrial and electronic chemicals, which has been banned from use in the late 70’s to 80’s. However, this chemical can still persist in the environment. We observed moderately high concentration in Southdown with 157 ng/g-pellet which coincides with a previously analyzed sample in Auckland (Browns Bay) with 65 ng/g-pellet also categorized moderately polluted (refer to PCBs NZ) However, Pakuranga, which is on the other side of the bay shows low concentration with 9.8 ng/g-pellet (rounded up to 10 ng/g-pellet in the maps) which can be categories as non-locally polluted. This could be due to the nature of the sampling sites where Southdown is an industrial area compared to Pakuranga which is more of a residential area. Compared to global concentration (refer to PCBs world) pollution status in New Zealand is moderate to low. Red spots in the global map show extremely polluted hotspots.
DDTs
A similar trend is observed with DDTs, which are pesticides also no longer in use. Southdown shows higher concentration with 11ng/g-pellet compared to Pakuranga with only 3 ng/g-pellet. In comparison with developing countries (refer to DDTs world) where DDTs were used for vector control, DDTs concentration in your samples are categories as lightly polluted and non-locally polluted for Southdown and Pakuranga respectively.
HCHs
As for HCHs, which is also a pesticide no longer in use, concentrations were low for both sites with 0.2 ng/g-pellet and 1 ng/g-pellet for Southdown and Pakuranga respectively which coincides with Browns Bay, 0.4 ng/g-pellet (Refer to HCHs NZ) suggesting no recent usage of the pesticide. However, from the same map you can observe high concentrations of HCHs north of the island (Taupo Bay and Ahipara). These seem to be agricultural sites, which may still be using the pesticide Lindane.
PAHs
Lastly, PAHs which are found in petroleum or crude oil products and combustion products generated from combusting fossil fuel and biomass, concentrations were low for both sites with 405 ng/g-pellet and 247 ng/g-pellet. These can be considered background levels mostly from combustion such as vehicle exhaust and power plant followed by atmospheric transport. From the global map of PAHs (refer to PAHs global), extremely high concentration of PAHs can be observed from the other areas in New Zealand. That is an example of oil pollution from the Rena oil spill case off the coast of Tauranga in Oct 2011.
So… Looks like we are ok for Pesticides (DDTs and HCHs) and PAHs. The PCBs in Southdown worry me. I will look further into that. It’s horrible that the ocean is full of these little poison pills, I am glad the ones I collected will not end up in any fish or birds.
House Above the Sea
My Grandmother found a book of my Grandfathers ‘The House Above the Sea’ by Ronald Lockley. Lockley was a keen environmentalist and lived just down the road from me in Glendowie. I haven’t found a book worth my full attention in years and I devoured it in a few days. His observations of my local flora & fauna are both insightful and moving. I have never read a book before where I actually know the characters, not just the birds and bugs, but the places, organisations and even the odd person! Somehow the book was even more special wondering what my Grandfather (who was quite the adventurer) thought of his rambling observations. My next walk through Tahuna Torea will be with wiser eyes.
Gardens for Wildlife
I was really happy to help develop the Gardens for Wildlife brand for Forest & Bird.
For the launch Jett and I helped about 100 volunteers plant 4,000 trees on millions of dollars of prime real estate in Orakei. Ngati Whatua o Orakei are awesome!
