Working closely with the community, Iwi and key agencies in the region, Nelson City Council is embarking on a long term project to improve the water quality of the much loved Maitai River.
The overarching aim of the Maitai Restoration project is to create a river that is safe to swim in and take kai from, and that everyone can enjoy and feel proud of.
The Maitai is an urban river that provides the city’s drinking water, and acts as a stormwater and flood channel. The health of the river is considered good but not great.
With $400,000 set aside for the first year of the programme, work is already well under way to make improvements across multiple fronts.
The three main initiatives to improve the river’s water quality are: E coli chasing (investigating the sources of E coli in the river), improvements to dam operations and projects to improve fish passage and biodiversity. Additional work includes riparian planting, fencing to limit stock access, better forestry and land management, best practice gravel extraction, funding community projects, and an education awareness campaign.
Latest improvements:
Changes have been made in July to dam operations to ensure that poor quality water is not included in the dam outlet into the Maitai River. Monitoring will be carried out to see if this makes the anticipated difference to the river’s water quality.
Nelson City Council has also identified two likely sources for E. coli contamination of the river due to leaking sewer pipes. Both pipes have been fixed and monitoring is planned to check if E. coli levels at Collingwood Street Bridge are as a result of the bacteria entering the river there or whether it is coming up the river on the incoming tide. The work to reduce sewage contamination is ongoing.
A comprehensive review of forestry practices is under way, two creeks have been fenced off from stock to further reduce contamination and public planting days are planned.