Mangawhai gets connected P3
Motorway extensions confirmed P6
Wine & food returns P5
Mangawhaifocus September 23, 2024
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Call for commonsense on channel dredging Boat groundings in Mangawhai’s estuary at low tide prompted an urgent meeting of interested parties on site recently. In attendance were representatives of Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society (MHRS), Kaipara District Council and Northland Regional Council (NRC). MHRS chair Peter Wethey says local boaties are concerned about the level of sand build-up in the channel directly in front of Mangawhai Heads Holiday Park, as well as the positioning of the navigation buoys. “We’re concerned about people who aren’t local and don’t know the channels of the harbour,” he says. “They know what green and red markers are meant to portray, but the red marker is gone so it’s causing confusion.” But the real concern is the build-up of sand along the centre channel. Wethey says the channel needs to be dredged, but the area is outside MHRS’s current brief that only allows them to dredge certain areas of the estuary. The society wants the NRC to change the resource consent to allow dredging in the channel, offshore from the holiday park, with a section of the beach used as a settling pond. “All of these things take a lot of money but if the NRC were a little bit more sympathetic to the issues we’ve got here, and listened to what the community who pays NRC rates are saying, they’d possibly grant us consent,” Wethey says. Previous NRC consents for dredging have cost MHRS between $200,000 and $300,000, although the price for the actual dredging was only $34,000. MHRS has regularly dredged the harbour since the 1991 Big Dig where locals dug out the Picnic Bay channel, which had become smelly and toxic due to breaches in the spit and changes in the natural water flow. Residents pay an annual $80 targeted rate, which goes to the society to keep the channel clear and return the sand to the Distal Spit. “There’s huge sand movement with every tide, a self-cleaning wash that goes out round Picnic Bay and the Heads. If we allow the sand to build up over the years, the volume and speed of water exiting the harbour on
From left, Kaipara councillor Mike Howard with Mayor Craig Jepson, MHRS member Doug Lloyd and chair Peter Wethey, Bay of Islands harbourmaster Rodger Girvin, NRC regional harbourmaster Jim Lyle, Mangawhai harbour warden Trevor Downey, MHRS member Vern Dark and NRC Whangārei harbourmaster Ross Watters, met recently to find answers to keeping Mangawhai’s estuary clear and boaties safe.
the tide gradually diminishes, carrying less sand out,” Wethey says. “We’ve got to be constantly making sure that none of the big channels block and we return sand to the Distal Spit so it doesn’t have any chance of breaching again.” An Auckland University study has revealed that in the last three or four years, the spit had diminished by 260,000 cubic metres of sand. “If we don’t keep putting it back it’s not going to be there in another 20 years.” Wethey says that in the last decade, there has been an “exponential increase” in boating activity on the harbour. With the Coastguard potentially proposing a station along the estuary, this will add more pressure to the area.
“The easy decision for the NRC is to look at the consenting issue and waive all the fees and costs associated with it. That would be a significant contribution. We’ve got the dredge; we’ve got the people; we’ve got the knowledge.” Following the site meeting, NRC regional harbourmaster Jim Lyle agreed to meet with NRC’s consent team to find out what the issues were. However, on the concern for boats running aground, he said it was the skipper’s responsibility to know their skill level, plan for weather and tide, and learn the local dangers such as bars and currents. “The general saying is ‘if in doubt, don’t go out’,” he said. He said he would look into renewing
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information signs at the boat ramp and he had secured funding for a regular boating patrol in Mangawhai. “We have an experienced skipper to provide safety advice over peak summer so that’s a big win,” he said. “Additionally, we have a summer campaign each year of safety initiatives targeting problem issues or areas.” On the yellow marker, which was originally installed by the Northland Harbour Board barge Maui, NRC’s deputy harbourmaster Peter Thomas said that due to the sandy location of the beacon on the bend of the estuary, the channel had changed route significantly over the years to either side of the marker. continued page 2
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