The Daily Blog Open Mic – Monday 12th September 2016

1. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/313116/lake-snot-the-'new-didymo‘

   More filthy lakes now in the south says good bye clean green NZ

   “when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn!

   By – Peter, Paul & Mary.

   RNZ National New Zealand environment

   1:45 pm today

   Lake snot the ‘new didymo’
   1:45 pm today

   Lake snot will have to be treated like a new didymo, says the Otago Regional Council, which has begun a two-year study into the spread of the algal slime.

   Clogged filter at Wanaka laundromat

   The algal slime known as lake snot has clogged filters at a Wanaka laundromat. Photo: Matt Davison

   The slime – also known as lake snow – was first found in Lake Wanaka in 2004, and has since been found in Lake Coleridge and Lake Wakatipu.

   The lake snot has clogged up fishing lines, boat intakes and Wanaka’s laundromats, and has led the Queenstown Lakes District Council to install a filter on the Wanaka town water supply.

   “The council has struggled to come to grips with the potential damage” – Dr Don Robertson duration 22′ :38″

   from Nine To Noon

   “The council has struggled to come to grips with the potential damage” – Dr Don Robertson

   A report to the Otago Regional Council last week found lake snot might be a biosecurity incursion, but more scientific work would be needed to confirm that.

   Don Robertson, one of the government-appointed Guardians of Lake Wanaka, said he was disappointed there had been no specific monitoring programme, nor major studies of the problem, since it was discovered.

   6 hectare patch of slime/lake snow in Stevensons Arm, Lake Wanaka, June 2016

   A six hectare patch of lake snot in Stevensons Arm on Lake Wanaka Photo: Davy Pattison Adventure Wanaka

   Dr Robertson, a former chief scientist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), said the council had been too slow to recognise the danger of the organism.

   He has called for a management plan for Lake Wanaka, which would include measures to study and check lake snot’s spread.

   Otago Regional Council resource science manager Dean Olsen acknowledged it had been slow off the mark, but said lake snot had the council’s attention now.

   Dr Olsen said a detailed two-year monitoring programme of the three lakes had begun today, to track the algae’s spread.

   Dr Olsen said the council would be using DNA science to identify the algae, and would be working with the Ministry for Primary Industries to confirm if it was a biosecurity incursion, as his gut feeling was that it was.

   He said not very much was known about lake snot, and how it spread, but the best strategy for now would be the same as for the invasive algal growth didymo (rock snot), which was to clean boats and water gear down so they did not carry the pest between lakes.

   • @Cleangreen ….
     The harder the greedy rise, the more severe they fall (and probably the uglier the way they fall).
     The Colmar Brunton shite tonight is an epic fail for the alternative. But even IF it proves to be true – I’m out of here if we get another run of the Natzi junta. (Better to actually join and live in the actual third world before NZ becomes one [and it’s close to it for many], and thankfully I’m debt free at least). It appears the lessons (oops, I mean ‘learnings’ of the past) mean sweet fuck all.
     You only need to check out TS to see the folly of NuZullners. It’s not JUST the Wayne Mapps and the various trolls, but it’s also many from ‘that collective Left’ that can’t get out of the way of their own egos and bubbles to see the bleeding obvious.

     What surprises me at times is those once half-decent National Party members that refrain from speaking out at what’s become of their party.
     I suspect fear, sociopathy, laziness, comfort might be the reason.

     But then…. look at the state of half the Labour Party!
     Ego, self-interest, self-aggrandisement, I-I-I-me-me-me, definately trumps principle. Shame their children aren’t going to remember them well – well actually, I’d join their kids in pissing on their graves if they were to invite me

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