Government ‘Fresh Water Plan’ Must Include Damage From ‘Road Runoff Pollution’ From Freight Trucks

CEAC applauds professor Mike Joy as NZ’s leading environmental ecologists tireless efforts to enlighten ‘successive Governments’ over the pollution of our waterways and promoting best practice paths of cleaning up of our waterways over successive years of effort, he has partly succeeded but still struggles to get all issues of contamination of our waterways addressed.

CEAC has strongly always said that rail with steel wheels especially if electric motivated is the best way to reduce our freight transport emissions finding ways to wash off our roads into our waterways and poisoning us.

CEAC has carefully reviewed of the current Government efforts to clean up our freshwater is somewhat impressed, especially at the funding “for local freshwater restoration projects, but scientists are holding their applause about the new Clean Water Package.

Backgrounder.

The government has announced a package of 23 projects across the country with more than 2000 jobs and worth $160 million, from the Jobs For Nature Fund that was announced in the Budget.

Labour says they will lead to immediate job creation and significant environmental outcomes.

But freshwater ecologist Dr Mike Joy, from Victoria University’s governance and policy school, is not impressed.

“What’s happening is they allow the pollution of our waterways and then think that we’re going to be happy that they’ve given money to clean it up,” Dr Joy said.

“It’s just so pointless to try cleaning up something if you don’t shut off the source of the problem. It’s like buying more tea towels to soak up a pot that’s boiling over on the stove instead of turning the gas down.

He said the projects, which had a key focus on wetlands and planting, showed scientific advice was being ignored.

But Dr Joy said the project was an example of plastering over the root of the problems as it still allowed pollution from farmland and wastewater discharges to continue.

CEAC response here is;

To add to this complex problem CEAC has long been advocating to clean up our waterways being daily polluted by other environmental contaminants not currently recognised, such as “road runoff” of vehicle emissions and toxic tyre dust pollution entering our steams alongside our highways and city roads.

This has been documented in global scientific documents all over the world and was included in a 104 page report from the Ministry of Transport from as long back as 2002, and the report is entitled “Emissions factors for contaminants released from motor vehicles in NZ”

https://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Import/Documents/9fa2b3a10b/stormwater-emission…
In New Zealand, emissions of key constituents from motor vehicles to air can be assessed using the Vehicle Fleet Emission Model. The user output from a run of this model is currently provided in the form of the user model NZ-TER (refer MoT 1998, MoT 2000, MonCrieff & Irving 2001).

This evidence is the ‘elephant in the room’, as on page 32 you can see the tyre dust deposits left on a road is washed down our road drains and into our waterways and drinking water and causes cancer to humans and animals alike.

CEAC has strongly always said that rail with steel wheels especially if electric motivated is the best way to reduce our freight transport emissions finding ways to wash off our roads into our waterways and entering our drinking water then poisoning us.

CEAC has carefully reviewed this subject and now has strongly requested that rail with steel wheels and if electric motivated is the best way to reduce our freight transport pollution emissions.