ISSUE SIXTY THREE: ONO TEKAU MĀ TORU SEPTEMBER 2021
Healing Wairarapa Moana
IN THIS ISSUE: p2 p3
Wai 85 Update Wairarapa Moana Trust Review Update p3 Find out more ... p4 What’s happening at this year’s AGMs? p6 Farm Update p8 Marae Update – Hurunui-o-Rangi Marae, Te Rangimarie Marae p10 Introducing Amethyst Tauese p10 Wairarapa Moana Merchandise p10 Returned Mail – Where Are You? p11 Taryn Morunga – Past Scholarship Recipient p11 Wairarapa Moana: The Lake and Its People p12 50 Unclaimed Dividends p12 Shareholder Bank Account Details p12 Mailer Closing Dates
Wairarapa Moana in flood. Photo, Charmaine Kawana
Despite being granted Ramsar status as an internationally important wetland last year, Wairarapa Moana’s water quality is set to get worse before it begins to mend. Niwa’s chief freshwater scientist, Scott Larned, said contaminants that were entering Lake Wairarapa right now were likely generated decades ago. Current nitrogen and phosphorus contaminants entering the lake would only reflect land use from the 1960s, he said. “The contaminants that are being generated in the 2020s is just now getting into the groundwater system. “It’s going to take contaminants another 20 or 30 years of travel through the groundwater system before they get to the lake.”
Larned said the travel time was prolonged between the land where these contaminants had been generated, to getting into the lake itself. “We haven’t even seen the signal of current land use in Wairarapa on Lake Wairarapa,” he said. According to Ramsar, Wairarapa Moana is the largest wetland complex on the southern part of the North Island.
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September 2021
