A Waimārama resident says he’s battling to control an “environmental nightmare” caused by fly-tipping on the village’s beloved sand dunes.
By Linda Hall for Local Democracy Reporting
Luke Shadbolt says dumping garden waste has been a longstanding issue in the coastal settlement, located 30km east of Hastings.
But he says the latest pest weed taking over the area is not only invasive, but potentially dangerous.
“This pest plant is called caper spurge. It wasn’t in the dunes six months ago, but is now seeding and spreading rapidly."
Shadbolt, who is pest operations manager for forestry conservation company Nateva, said the pest plant had been introduced by locals fly-dumping garden waste.
“This plant has a nasty milky sap that causes burning, skin irritation and potentially blindness if you get it in your eyes and is harmful to both pets and people.”
He said at this stage it was contained in about a 100m area just south of Waingongoro Stream, but it spread fast and could end up dominating native dune plants and grasses.
“What people don’t realise is that pulling out weeds from their garden because they are a problem and then dumping them in the dunes is just relocating the problem.”
He said that particular part of the dunes was now full of onionweed, agapanthus, blackberry, succulents and “all sorts of stuff” which had come from dumped garden waste.
“It might take 10 minutes to drive down to the beach to dump the stuff, but it’s going to take a couple of volunteers and me probably 100 hours’ work to remove it, as spray doesn’t generally work so it will have to be done by hand.
“I don’t think locals realise they are creating an environmental nightmare in their own back yard.”
Shadbolt has been in touch with the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, but he says the council shouldn’t have to fix the problem.
“It was locals who caused it, and it will be locals who fix it.”
A spokesperson for the council said caper spurge was not a species Hawke’s Bay Regional Council actively managed.
“Although most Euphorbia species have yellow flowers, if you find one growing in the dunes, make sure it is correctly identified before removing it. There is also a native dune-growing Euphorbia species with deep red flowers that is threatened and nationally vulnerable,“ the spokesperson said.
“One of the key ways weed species are introduced into native ecosystems, particularly dunes, is by people dumping garden waste.
“People with green waste, especially people who know or suspect their green waste contains something toxic, should check in with their city or district council to find out about disposal options.”
While there was no local dump or green waste collection area in Waimārama, Shadbolt said that was no excuse.
“The Blackbridge Transfer station takes green waste, or take it into BioRich or bag it up and put it out in your wheelie bin."
Shadbolt did not think the fly-tippers understood what damage they were doing to the beach.
“The sand doesn’t need compost, the plants down there are perfectly adapted to that environment.
“That’s why I’m speaking out. There’s no point doing the work to remove it if some muppet is just going to dump more garden waste in the same area.”
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
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