Good afternoon Commissioners This power point presentation has - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

• Good afternoon Commissioners
• This power point presentation has been put together to support the submission

made by the Wellington Recreational Marine Fishers Association

• We are opposing the Trans-Tasman Resources Ltd resource consent

application to mine 50 million tonnes of product to extract 5 million tonnes of iron ore and the method proposed of discharging 45 million tonnes of dredge waste back onto the sea bed for 20 years off the coast of Wanganui.

• Our marine knowledge knows this process will create a massive mud storm

that will severely reduce all marine life from north of New Plymouth to Wellington and right into the Marlborough Sounds and D’Urville Island including the mussel farms in Admiralty Bay. This will impact on our Government acknowledged right to catch our daily bag limit.

• Presentation and research by Jim Mikoz President WRMFA
• At EPA hearing 16 April 2014

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• Let me first introduce this presentation as it contains information that you

would have never seen before as it has been gathered over the last 50 years.

• Firstly I will describe who I am and what experience I have to present this

information.

• I will take you through the errors in the information presented by NIWA, TTR,

SKM and NIWA scientists.

• I will take you to the Waverly iron sand mining that was taking place 33 years

ago.

• I will show you a number of mud slicks on the sea and comment on their

known impacts.

• I will then show you the fish I captured spawning and that NIWA has been

providing misinformation to regional councils and Government for years.

• Then I will show what we discovered while identifying the food sources of

yellow eyed mullet. They and blue cod do not eat mud.

• The impacts of dredge waste on marine life in Wellington Harbour will be

explained.

• How other sea bed mining projects were going to be managed.

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• Show you the life in the Wellington Harbour submarine fresh water springs

and why there are springs off Patea. Also discuss the consequences caused by the errors in the NIWA bathometric chart and why springs were missed off Patea and Wellington Harbour bathometric charts.

• Take you to a sand mining project in Wellington that destroyed the biodiversity
• f two lakes and three beaches as the WRC could not find anyone with

scientific marine knowledge to advise them.

• I will show you why NIWA provided misinformation and failed to protect the

blue cod in the Marlborough Sounds.

• I will show you why sand can not be made into 11 metre deep trenches.
• I will prove freshwater is lighter than sea water and that it forms slicks only

millimetres thick in the open sea.

• I will show you what happened to Porirua Harbour when there was no mud

and sediment management in place.

• I will prove the information provided by NIWA describing the currents in the

area and through Cook Strait are incorrect and why.

• I will show that when Wanganui experienced flooding in 1990,1998 and 2000

Makara received the muddy water three days later.

• Describe what causes tidal surges and how NIWA can not predict them and
• nly comment after the event.

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• I have through the WRMFA and Wellington Surfcasting and Angling Club

represented all marine recreational fishers in the greater Wellington Region for thirty years and continue to do so through my appointment by Government on the MPI FMA 2 & 8 Recreational Marine Fishers Advisory

• Group. The NZ Angling and Casting Association appointed me as their

Honorary Vice President to represent all NZ marine recreational fishers on DOC NGO forums, Ministry of Environment Exclusive Economic Zone and Environmental Reporting Forums.

• For over thirty years my passion has been understanding the marine

environment and I was asked to write by the Editor a number of stories in the NZ Fishing Coast to Coast magazine so that my acquired marine knowledge could be passed on to others. When I discovered the NZCPS was going to be rolled over for a further 10 years in 2002 I alerted the then Prime Minister Helen Clark and Minister of the Environment Marion Hobbs that there was no information describing the value of the intertidal to marine species. Three months later Helen Clark announced the review and replied with a three page

• letter. I have since been credited for the review. Latter Marion Hobbs set in

place from my information the proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.

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• In 2002 the Minister of Conservation Sandra Lee also replied “You are to be

congratulated for your sterling and pioneering work on the conservation importance of the intertidal zone.” The next Minister of Conservation Chris Carter set in place the process to review the NZCPS and he also recognised the discoveries I was making when he wrote in a letter “Your focus on the importance of protecting the tidal reaches of waterways as critical habitats for a number of specie is an important contribution and is one of the issues that the review of the NZCPS will I am sure address.”

• I was invited to attend the Foundation for Research Science and Technology

programme called Natural Ecosystems a $32 million project to help identify areas where NZ lacks scientific knowledge. We were told there would be no funding into the intertidal zone even though I had advised them four of our eight national important data bases carried serious errors and not one native intertidal plant was named. I then wrote a story describing what I had found. My stories circulate through Government and it did not take long before funding was allocated. I proved you do not need to have a Dr before your name to make changes or discoveries. At a MofE Environmental Reporting meeting where 150 had assembled to learn about the inter tidal zone the NIWA scientist present told the meeting her group of scientists could not use my information as I was not a scientist. MofE people were not impressed and we have not had these meetings since.

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• Much of marine knowledge has been acquired from being an experienced

competitive recreational fisher who held twenty five NZ Records and has won a number of fishing competitions in local and other waters.

• My marine knowledge also interacts with my heavy industry and construction

involvement and the knowledge it brings.

• I began changing how the marine environment is managed twenty eight years

ago when I stopped the Victoria University trawling Wellington Harbour after discovering their permit was illegal. A few years I wrote a letter to the Minister

• f Transport describing how the format of the marine forecast throughout NZ

was wrong. I was invited to a discussion group where my ideas were accepted and now all forecasts on the phone, internet and TV today are based on my

• riginal concept. The Met service went from an annual two million dollar loss

to a three million profit the next year.

• It took five years of letters and surveys until finally the WCC built the Owhiro

Bay boat ramp. I choose the site, ramp angle, construction method, and landscape ideas which allows the ramp to blend into the environment.

• While taking part in the Wellington Port Company dredge working group I

discovered the consultants had made a major error. The discovery led to the proposed dredging to be abandoned. As thanks I asked if they could keep Miramar Wharf open to recreational fishers they agreed and it has never been shut since.

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• Before the Meridian West Wind farm resource consent went to submission

senior management accepted my marine knowledge and dropped their other plans to unload turbines and instead built a wharf where I had suggested and removed it after the work was finished, which I had also requested.

• Another request for help resulted in Porirua Iwi taking the information I had

gathered for another Meridian project and the MofE National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management to the WCC, PCC and WRC to ask that they take ownership of the Porirua Harbour and restore its value to Iwi.

• For five years I represented NZ Fishing Council on mid water stock assessment

committees.

• Co wrote a science paper describing the value of beach cast seaweed to marine

species.

• Have become involved in protecting major marine specie spawning grounds
• ver submarine fresh water springs in Evans Bay from an airport extension.
• I am now involved on WCC community storm water group where the Policy’s I

had introduced to the NZCPS ( 21 to 23 ) are now being carried out.

• I am also on WCC wastewater and HCC wastewater community groups.
• Took WCC to NZ Environment Court with overseas research proving the

information the Cawthron Institute had provided at the resource consent was

• incorrect. They had taken samples half a metre below the surface and then

described 4000 litres of wastewater a second mixes with sea water inside 200 m.

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• When we looked at the resource consent application we could not find a

Sediment Management Plan and the only reference to marine impacts was the Fathom Consulting Ltd paper Assessment of potential impacts on commercial fishing which stated that “no significant off-site impacts on commercial fisheries are anticipated”. For a number of years I have received information from the MPI Inshore Working Group so a few phone calls establish neither TTR or EPA had a plan and had not done any research on how long mud from the site takes to settle.

• I contacted EPA asking for the plan weeks before submissions had closed.

After submissions had closed a number of hurriedly put together statements made from computers appeared on the EPA site. Obviously lacking in practical marine knowledge and hurriedly put together the models produced were unscientific and easily seen to be hopelessly inaccurate.

• Finding that EPA were relying on TTR computer models of everything

connected with the project caused a great deal of concern and made us look for

• ther errors. Errors were not hard to find. SKM were only given two core

samples by TTR from their collection of over 150. SKM turned those samples into 24 pages of unscientific rubbish as if the two samples had reflected the whole site.

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• EPA in response to my request for a sediment management contracted SKM to

produce a paper which they called Assessment of Effects on the Physical Environment from TTR application. The research is of an extremely poor standard and must be dismissed as rubbish.

• SKM used the NIWA rubbish that currents in the area and Cook Strait move

in a regular rhythm and can be reproduced on a computer. Hadfield at the hearing proved NIWA had failed in their research when he could not say how far the sediment will travel.

• It is impossible and irresponsible for NIWA and Hadfield to take a three week

window of the currents at the dredge site and then describe them as happening all year for twenty years. To then make a series of animated computer models is clearly irresponsible and unscientific. What NIWA has described are sea bed currents and these have nothing to do with surface currents which will carry the mud with the wind in any direction as the currents off that coast do not behave as Hadfield has described.

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• The SKM assessment has used the misinformation from NIWA and has failed

to grasp how the returning product will impact. We are told the product will return to the sea bed at the rate of 133 tonnes a minute or at 2,222 litres a second about six metres above the sea bed. This product will be fully aerated in a brine solution and in a very liquid state. Gravity will cause the heavier particles to hit the bottom and bounce and aided by the chemical flocking agent sand and mud will separate. The resulting silt cloud will being lighter than sea water will reach the surface and stay suspended and reaching past Makara in three days just as mud did after the Wanganui floods. Some of the mud and silt will not reach the surface and remain in the water column covering the sand on the seabed, smothering plants and killing all other marine life for miles.

• We know in a southerly storm surface currents run north for days and then

when the wind stops the surface water returns for 24 hours or more from the

• north. All unknown to NIWA. The returning water from the north will now

have a surface layer of muddy fresh water that will smother paua and crayfish spawning beds throughout the Cook Strait, D’Urville Island and Admiralty Bay mussel farms as mud will prevent all filter feeding shell fish from obtaining their food sources. The public will quickly see the impacts of sand mining as the mud will reduce the stock rates of the mussel and salmon farming industry in the Marlborough Sounds and at Admiralty Bay within a year or two and make their operation unfinancial.

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• The grinding of the iron sands will release chemicals that will combine with the

flocking agents that will have to used to separate the iron sands from the mud. This chemical cocktail will be dissolved in the brine that will then be discharged

• nto the sea bed at the rate of 2,222 litres a second. Brine being lighter than

sea water will immediately rise and as fresh water produces algae there is a good chance now combined with chemicals the algae may form toxic blooms.

• Fish eat algae toxic or not however if marine mammals were to eat a number of

fish that had eaten the toxic algae they will die. Add other factors I have been able to predict when and where marine mammals will beach themselves eight times now. All mammals suffer the same problems after eating toxic fish or shell fish as the toxins cause brain cell disruptions leading to disorientation, violent stomach cramps and vomiting. After three days the toxins pass through their bodies and recovery begins marine mammals then swim out to sea.

• The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute published research in their paper

Oceanus in November 1978 how nineteen humpbacked whales died off Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts. They said “These whales did not die from stranding but were dying at sea and washing ashore. Post mortem examination revealed that the whales were healthy immediately prior to their deaths and the fish in their guts provide evidence of recent feeding. The public and the press speculated that pollution was the cause and scientists later discovered the mackerel the whales had consumed had an abundance of algal toxins stored in their flesh”.

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These dolphins are making a net of water bubbles to trap the fish off Island Bay. They will not travel through polluted waters. They never travel into Wellington Harbour if they have to cross the HCC waste water slick.

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• Invited to evaluate the sediment trap plan for Mill Creek wind turbines I found

this which changed the design of the traps. It is impossible to remove endocrine chemical from waste water plants so it follows it will be impossible to remove flocking chemicals from this discharge.

• Flocking agents are an environmental concern and were discussed by Beca

Carter Holdings & Ferner Ltd who made the following comments.

• Cationic polyacrylamides are positively charged and are commonly used in a

number of municipal wastewater treatment plants to improve solids removal during pre-settlement. They are recognised as flocculants with greater toxicity implications for fish and other aquatic organisms than anionic or non-ionic

• polyelectrolytes. This is because the gills of fish are negatively charged, and the

cationic polymer binds to them resulting in mechanical suffocation.

• 2.5.2 Toxicity and Chemistry in Water
• The aluminum coagulants contain high concentrations of the toxic ionic form of
• Aluminum.. However, at lower pH, the toxicity increases with an effect of possible

major concern being the coagulation of mucus on the gills of fish.

• Chemicals contained within the brine will wash ashore killing all intertidal life.

The algae that grows on the sand will be chemically cleaned and disappear. Pine trees along a shore line kills algae resulting in a loss of shell fish and where there is no shell fish there will be no fish.

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• The mud filled surface layer of brine will have another impact.
• In the Maui dolphin threat paper by DOC and Mfish they found that Maui

dolphins are feeding when they swim in and out of the wedge of fresh water coming out of the rivers when they run dirty. I have established marine fish will not swim or feed in muddy water. Under Gerry Closs of Otago University scientists found in a study of the Giant Kakopu otolith that by using microchemistry that these native fish swim in and out to sea all through their lives.

• After the Hutt River floods the fresh water remains trapped inside Wellington

Harbour for seven tide changes. Davidson in a study for the Waka house

• bserved native fresh water fish swimming in this layer of fresh water.

Recreational fishers often catch the sea run trout in this layer as they wait for the river to run clean.

• When the regions rivers run muddy native fresh water fish will head out to sea

looking for clean water but when the plant begins operation assisted by the prevailing on shore waters the muddy brine will be continually pushed ashore and there will be no clean water. This will prevent Maui dolphins from

• btaining their traditional food sources and support my prediction made 10

years ago they will be all gone by 2020. Both marine and fresh water fish will find there is no escape from mud and being prevented from breathing will die in their thousands.

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The computer models produced by Hadfield of NIWA describing the plume direction and distance travelled are totally inaccurate for a number of reasons.

• New Zealand experiences weather patterns that go through ten year cycles and

with that currents change. These cycles and the currents I have described yet they have not received any scientific research and NIWA continually proves they have not improved their knowledge about sea surface currents since they called the survivors of the Rose Noel liars after they washed ashore exhausted at Great Barrier Island. Using their sea bed information on currents displayed

• n LINZ marine charts they send Maritime NZ and NZ Police in the wrong

direction every time to look for missing people or lost objects. NIWA could not describe where to find a life boat that was washed off a Picton Ferry until the public told them where to look.

• I have described the Cook Strait currents in a number of my NZ Fishing Coast

to Coast stories one described how a small boat was sent in a southerly to Wanganui with a NZAF Orion failing to find them. Months after describing the NIWA and LINZ chart errors in my frigate sinking story the diver Hewitt went missing. With a commercial fisher friend we worked out when and where he would be found, we were four hours out.

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• In the SKM Executive summary item 2 they make the statement that the

“Prevailing currents flow to the southeast due to the influence of the D’Urville Current”. They have not advised that the surface current on any day could be going in the opposite direction to their predicted sea bed currents.

• SKM and NIWA must have never surfed as the west coast has cold water due

to rising waters from the Sub Antarctic flow. Known scientifically as the conveyer current this current pushes up from the deep Hokitika Trench not

• nly providing a massive food source for hoki but the continuous flow of

marine life contains not just zoo plankton but dinoflagellates and krill that combine as a major marine food source all the way to the equator. There it replaces the warmed waters and provides a food source for all other marine

• life. (The Restless Sea and Mapping the Deep by Robert Kunzig).
• Scientific research in America has proven mud kills zoo plankton contrary to

what these NZ scientists think. The impact from sand mining every day for twenty years will impact on all marine life and the loss of marine life in distant waters will be easily traced back to sand mining in NZ. It is environmental madness that a country that is totally against whaling is now through our scientists lack of marine knowledge promoting the killing of their food source. The end result will be the same as commercial whaling marine mammals will die.

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The mud and chemicals now on the surface will travel through all the reef and beach surf breaks of New Plymouth taking much of the enjoyment of surfing

• nce clean waters away. The impact on

these surf breaks will be in breach of the NZCPS protecting surf breaks in NZ. Word of the breach will spread around NZ and the surfing world instantly and be a political night mare for all concerned. The biggest impact for recreational fishers will be the loss of regionally important game fishing grounds as game fish can only be caught in clean water blue water like this. These fish feed deep down on krill zoo plankton and small fish that have risen out of the sub Antarctic flow off this coast. At 2,222 litres a second all day for twenty years of muddy water all marine life will suffocate.

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• There is also the laughable belief on page 4 of the application that a machine

pumping out huge quantities of high pressure water and turning the sea bed into slush will leave behind a eleven metre high trench that will stand up for

• days. It is unbelievable that a scientist has not stood up and said that what is

proposed is scientifically impossible?

• Every child could tell TTR, EPA or NIWA that when they dug a hole in a

beach the tide fills the hole in. Take this a step further now dig out the sand and take it away and watch what happens. The same thing happens so where did that sand come from? However sand mining is on a much larger scale and with every bit of product extracted gravity will fill in the hole created.

• Obviously NIWA has failed to advise TTR that gravity works out at sea as well

as on land. The machine will be removing 8000 tonnes an hour for processing before returned it to the sea bed. Who are these scientists that believe there will be a trench immediately behind the machine. Its impossible other than a slight dip in the sea bed as gravity will pull sand into the hole. So where did the sand come from the only area with mobile sand is the beaches. The product that is being returned will now create hills that will prevent trawlers working the area in the future. The beaches will become lower and seas will begin eating into the sand dunes that have been building up for centuries. EPA will then advise the public that the rapidly eroding beaches is being caused by climate change. But the erosion will be really caused by EPA not having the resources to see beyond a computer model.

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• Our input into the 2010 NZ Coastal Policy Statement produced Policy 21 to 23

added to guide councils on coastal management decisions. The adding of chemicals to the sand mining process will be in conflict of Policy 23. For example :

• Policy 23 Discharge of contaminants
• (1) In managing discharges to water in the coastal environment, have

particular regard

• to:
• (a) the sensitivity of the receiving environment;
• (b) the nature of the contaminants to be discharged, the particular

concentration

• f contaminants needed to achieve the required water quality in the receiving
• environment, and the risks if that concentration of contaminants is exceeded;
• and
• (c) the capacity of the receiving environment to assimilate the contaminants;
• and:
• (d) avoid significant adverse effects on ecosystems and habitats after reasonable
• mixing;
• (e) use the smallest mixing zone necessary to achieve the required water quality

in

• the receiving environment; and
• (f) minimise adverse effects on the life-supporting capacity of water within a
• mixing zone.

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• The description of the mud off this coast by SKM is grossly inaccurate. This

coast has pockets of deep mud that I found while fishing this coast. Twelve

• nce sinkers become stuck in this mud so deep that I only caught fish on the top

hook, at least a metre up. The type of mud is mainly papa mud and is extremely fine. I have first hand knowledge of this product as I experienced the damage this fine material did to machinery while maintaining the earth moving machinery constructing the Patea Earth dam.

• I will begin the slide presentation by first taking you to the iron sand mining
• peration at Waverley that I was invited to look over thirty three years ago,

then take you through the impacts on marine specie.

• In any mining operation mud is part and parcel of the product extraction

process and it is ignorant and arrogant for TTR to not have a logical sediment management plan.

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• Note this operation is using opposing screws to loosen the product which is then

sucked up into a large sieve. This process would have a far less impact on the environment.

• It is unbelievable that TTR propose to loosen the product by water jets and not
• ne consultant has questioned the method. This seriously questions the marine

knowledge of those appointed by TTR and EPA to comment and alerted us to look for other errors.

• I have attended almost all resource consent applications in the Wellington since

1999 and only once has a scientist described the value of clean sea water to marine specie. It was at the 2003 WCC waste water resource consent. There the DOC scientist and myself experienced what happens when you describe the secret life under the sea to marine species at a resource consent hearing as two

• f the Commissioners stood up and abused both of us for daring to describe the

intertidal zone had value. At other hearings commissioners have told me to sit down as they are not interested in the impacts on marine environment and

• thers have cut me off while half way through our presentation for a cup of tea.

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• Listening to the presentations at the 31.3.14 hearing there appeared to be a

perception that a sea bed covered in sand has no value. Fish can not be caught

• ver mud and in the NZ Fishing News Guide for the Wanganui area page 228 it

has given fishing locations for fish that can only be caught over sand. The process described at the hearing to extract sand will never allow the sea bed to return to sand and a healthy liveable state. Those who fish from the shore find they can never catch a fish in dirty water.

• The impact of noise has not been described. The noise that will be generated

from a grinding process over and above what is an extremely noisy operation is a concern. The noise at Waverley was loud but an operation on the water will allow the noise to travel under water for hundreds of miles and over the water into coastal towns. Science describes whales avoiding noisy projects and migration paths get changed as loud noises prevent then communicating. Commercial fishers describe an area receiving seismic exploration explosions causes fish to move out of an area for 500 miles likewise the under water noise created by an earth quake also causes fish to stop biting.

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In the distance is a super ore tanker off Waverly. These ships are a disaster waiting to happen due to communication problems between officers from one country and a crew from another. Already there has been two separate occasions where the crew has shut down the auxiliary engines that has prevented the main engine from starting. This ship at anchor is showing how fast the surface current is as it flows north.

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• The loading of these tankers is a very risky business in a swell as it will be

coming side on and the product coming aboard is a slurry. As it is pumped into the holds of the tankers the sand settles before the water can be pumped over the side. At this time ships can become very unstable. If these ships are forced to load in a heavy sea it can cause the product in its slurry state to shift. One of these tankers experienced such a shift and came close to capsizing and had to go to Golden Bay so that small loaders could be flown in to shift the product.

• The west coast often experiences what we call king waves which are waves that

are twice or three times the height of the swell currently arriving. The coast all the way down to Makara every now and again experiences freak waves coming

• ut of flat sea which have been seen to be two or three metres high. Marine

science has plotted these waves but NIWA has never been able to predict them.

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• The New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy 2000 (NZBDC) produced by the

Department of Conservation describes our concerns with the phrase in its title “Our Chance to Turn the Tide”.

• The draft compiled by DOC: outlines six key areas for action, including: - better

managing the marine environment; improving assessment and management of endangered species; and better government action and more community participation.

• In the Strategy it makes this statement: “Evaluating the state of New Zealand’s

marine and coastal biodiversity is difficult due to our very limited information.” Further the Strategy advises “Shellfish and some other marine invertebrates remain vulnerable to over harvest and habitat degradation.

• The draft of the Strategy also suggests “the aim of the proposed goals in the draft

strategy is to turn the tide of decline of our indigenous biodiversity within a single generation.”

• We spend thousands producing such strategies only for those with money to

destroy what others had developed into a profitable industry.

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• This importance of the discoveries we have made has been indirectly supported

in the 2008 NIWA publication A review of land based effects on coastal fisheries and supporting biodiversity in New Zealand by Morrison, Lowe, Parsons, Usmar and McLeod.

• The lack of scientific studies into the intertidal zone was illustrated when they

described “little is known (scientifically) about our intertidal zone or the impacts.” NIWA were right about that as their marine scientists have failed to describe or name the marine specie yellow eyed mullet or grey mullet which lives, feeds and spawns in every estuary or river in NZ a fact that every experienced recreational and commercial fisher knows.

• NIWA said “Most of our current knowledge concerning the effects of suspended

sediments on fish are based on freshwater species.” Then the publication further

• explains. “Most existing information of the effects of suspended sediment is

based on acute exposure laboratory experiments, with little empirical information available on chronic responses to high concentrations for extended periods, especially for marine species, or under natural field conditions.”

• The NIWA publication makes the photos you are about to see extremely

important to all involved. They describe a marine world that science has not yet discovered. It therefore explians why the appointed marine scientists could not describe the impacts on marine life, they just don’t know.

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• After representing the Makara Guardians as their marine and intertidal expert

for the Meridian West Wind project I was asked to represent the Ohariu Valley people opposing the Mill Creek wind turbines. They asked me to describe how mud would impact on life in the Makara Stream inter tidal zone.

• While the impact was not yet there I figured that if I documented in photos

how the Wellington Regional Council was currently managing sediment and mud it would give a fair indication as to what the Makara Stream was going to look like.

• Research found that all councils in NZ are using a plan originating from the

Auckland Regional Council based on a different rock. This sediment management plan has serious errors as it advises using chemicals in the flocking process that kills aquatic life which would seriously impact on the Makara Stream aquatic life.

• The chemicals that are going to be used at the process plant have not been

named however their function would be the same as flocking. The chemicals would then be dissolved in the fresh water and discharged into the sea. As this chemical will be in the floating freshwater the prevailing wind will transport these chemicals onto our coastal beaches, killing shell fish beds.

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Surface slick of muddy water over 11,000 metres long being discharged from the small Oteranga Stream as a result of Meridian wind turbine construction and WRC sediment trap design failure. Photo taken looking towards Sinclair Head with Karori Rock in the middle of the picture. Commercial fishers reported that they could not catch crayfish for weeks after this sediment trap blow out. Unfortunately the currents in the Cook Strait carried this mud backwards and forwards for days after. A diver that went missing at Sinclair Head Police failed to find her but she came ashore 12 hours later at a bay near Karori

• Light. Information that is described in the book

Greater Cook Strait Form and Flow by Harris but ignored by NIWA.

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• In section 25 of the March 2014 Joint Statement of experts in the field of effects
• n fish and zooplankton they concluded “that the additional sediment from the

mining operation will have no additional level of effect over that of the natural processes occurring”. Yet they did no research using the Patea mud therefore this conclusion is unscientific and baseless as is much of their views as they failed to answer the questions they set out to answer at the beginning of their Statement.

• Even the gray wacky mud slick from the Meridian West Wind project resulted

in no crayfish being caught by commercial fishers for weeks afterwards. The Joint Statement is seriously flawed as they have avoided admitting that fish eggs do not survive buried in mud.

• The Dr Grieve report on zooplankton is seriously flawed as it only refers to sea

bed currents when we know the Wanganui area is subjected to massive surface back eddies that carry life in a way that NIWA, LINZ, Maritime NZ and NZ Police continually prove they have no knowledge of. Public presentations by MacDiarmid while at NIWA showing the Cook Strait currents acting in a predicable rhyme are incorrect just as Hadfield's description of Wanganui currents as being predictable are incorrect. Computers can not predict the surface currents as they are generated by wind and pressure systems.

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Mud flowing out of the Wainuiomata River with the Orongongo River further east running clean. Fresh water can stay on the surface for 25 miles or more.

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Flying over the Sounds it became obvious why NIWA could not find blue cod in the Sounds as fish can not live in muddy waters. This also describes NZ lack of scientific knowledge as neither NIWA, DOC, MfE or Mfish were present or provided information at the resource consent to stop further fast ferry sailings.

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Sediment traps like this

• ne displayed on the

WRC sediment guidelines failed in the first heavy rainfall. Kaitoke

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The mud from the blown out trap at Kaitoke could be seen travelling on the surface past Baring Head. The impact from the WRC failure to design a secure sediment trap was massive as the mud remained on the surface of Wellington Harbour for over three days.

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• While researching material for a submission I found that a scientist had made a

statement in his book Atlas of NZ Freshwater fishes that “yellow eyed mullet spawn haphazardly out at sea.” I along with other recreational fishers already knew that they spawn in the inter tidal zone of streams and rivers as we had spent hours watching them.

• To get this scientists error corrected I contacted NIWA to either back up the

error or correct it as it was not true. In reply they quoted back the section in the book as if it was true. NIWA has made a number of errors in the information provided to this resource consent application that should be known to them and corrected years ago. NIWA can not correct the errors made in the past without a great deal of money which is not available for research, so the errors remain to be told again and again at every resource consent.

• However Andrew Stewart from Te Papa offered to help saying if I could

provide him with twelve yellow eyed mullet he will see if they had been

• spawning. Within weeks I had captured twelve from the Makara Estuary and

arrived at Te Papa. We found one was carrying ripe running roe the first first yellow eyed mullet captured at the point of spawning. The findings were confirmed by Dr Clive Roberts of Te Papa. Subsequent visits with more samples of twelve fish established what they had been eating.

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Yellow eyed mullet, most will only see their splash as they feed on sand flies in the day or mysid shrimps at night. A man made fish ladder and tunnel was built in the South Island its called the Waihou Box that allows these fish to return to their spawning and feeding grounds in a river. Note they are swimming in clean water.

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Sample sent to Te Papa. These fish have been known to grow is 590mm. The small fish are also yellow eyed mullet recently hatched in the estuary. At Kuaotuna the lagoon came alive with these 50 mm fish yet the lagoon had been closed to the sea for weeks. A study of yellow eyed mullet in 1963 by Manikiam described he never found their eggs in Wellington Harbour and neither could Victoria University in their planktonic trawls.

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This is the size of yellow eyed mullet a week or two after hatching in the Makara

• Estuary. Mistakenly identified in the 2010 DOC draft on estuaries as anchovies.

They become Maui dolphin food when the stream runs muddy.

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First ever recorded yellow eyed mullet with ripe running roe, caught in the Makara Estuary.

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Female yellow eyed mullet prior to spawning

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Male yellow eyed mullet prior to spawning

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Male yellow eyed mullet

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On the same night inanga were spawning. Note the date – spawning in summer, not autumn as science thinks.

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• After making a few discoveries as to what yellow eyed mullet eat at Te Papa
• thers became interested and I received support from F&B and ECO NZ who

were on the DOC NGO forum with me. They asked Hugh Logan the Director General to introduce me to a marine scientist so that my discoveries could be written into science papers.

• The scientist was Ian West the then Marine Science Manager at DOC and after

showing him my discoveries he provided me with every science paper ever written about yellow eyed mullet. The papers proved that no one had discovered the yellow eyed mullet food sources. The following photos describe their food sources first with Andrew Stewart then with Ian West which have never been recorded before or since.

• Later I was to discover I had documented that a fish found in streams, rivers

and the open sea does not eat one spec of mud. Just as we know marine fish do not eat mud or can be caught in muddy waters.

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• Many people including senior Maori have shared their marine knowledge

knowing that I would be able to pass on the information to a wider audience.

• I have done this through the many stories that were published in the NZ

Fishing Coast to Coast magazine and presentations to our regional and local council senior management. Other presentations have been to Government Boards to Enquiry, resource consent hearings and environmental groups.

• One of our discoveries was written into a science paper with the help of Ian

West and Alan Heath. Unfortunately both the past Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson and the NZ Journal for Marine and Freshwater Research found they had a conflict of interest and could not publish our paper. Wilkinson had just signed off a paper allowing the Island Bay beach to be groomed of all marine life knowing it was the only beach of sand in the entire south coast marine reserve.

• Through Ian West I was able to access all published and many unpublished

science discoveries in NZ. I located an unpublished 1946 masters paper on blue cod that sampled 10,000 blue cod for years. NIWA would not reference the work until I started quoting the findings. If NIWA had recognised the work the information would have changed fishery management in NZ.

• .

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We did not know what they had been eating until we took them to Te Papa. But is clear they have not eaten any mud while collecting the sand hoppers.

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From the previous sample we found they had been eating sand hoppers. Sand hoppers are found in beach cast seaweed that has a base of sand.

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Sample of sand hoppers from 12 yellow eyed mullet

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Yellow eyed mullet do not eat mud or silt when gathering their food

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When science collected sand hoppers for identification they did not collect any from the gut of a yellow eyed mullet. Te Papa have this collection as they expect to find a few more different specie

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It soon became obvious that these fish do not eat mud and you never see them in muddy water. Mud in the intertidal zone will destroy the very beginning of the marine food chain.

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Holes in the sand at Petone Beach where sand hoppers live they are not found in mud or shingle without sand.

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• In 2003 the Ministry of Fisheries commissioned Kincett Mitchell Ltd to review

the “Environmental impacts of harvesting beach-cast seaweeds in New Zealand”. The review was carried out by Zemke-White, Speed, McClary in 2002/03 and was entitled KBS 2002/03-KMA.

• In the section Summary – Objectives 1-2, they made the following comments:

When not collected beach-cast seaweed plays a role in terrestrial, beach and near shore food webs. Removal changes structure/density of beach fauna. No data on the impacts of removal on near shore food webs.

• You do not need to be a scientist to see from the photos the massive food source

clean beach cast seaweed supports. The life I have shown you has converted the cellulose in seaweed to protein yet our marine scientists say they know absolutely nothing about its value to marine specie.

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While Kincett Mitchell Ltd could not find any scientific data if they had looked at a beach they would have seen the value of beach cast seaweed to sea gulls and fish. However by the time they would have got near the gulls they would have flown away taking their knowledge with them. The yellow eyed mullet seen feeding as the tide comes in would have also gone into deeper water and not knowing or asking where and when to catch moki on a line they would have demonstrated a all to common attitude scientific attitude in NZ that if we don’t know therefore no

• ne knows.

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Island Bay beach in the centre of the south coast marine reserve Wellington. Grooming this beach by the WCC and DOC has had two impacts. First the beach cast seaweed is removed denying marine specie the protein for spawning and second the continual under mining and removal of sand had a massive impact on the sea wall. Sea bed mining will also cause sand to move from the beaches and the result will be the same.

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Continual sand mining by the WCC undermined the wall at Island Bay. Sand mining alters the sea bed here this resulted in the sea wall that had stood for well

• ver 60 years collapsing in a big sea.

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• Not all councils and Government people are as ignorant of the marine life on a

beach as the WCC and DOC. The Hutt City Council after being provided with my NZ Fishing Coast to Coast story Bad luck Hector you are dead meat realised the importance of beach cast seaweed and how sticks and logs trap sand and stop beach erosion.

• HCC now only groom the beach three times a year instead of every two weeks

and not only does marine life returned to the shore line but families now come and build structures with drift wood. The Gisborne City Council also listened and they cut back on grooming and the sand returned.

• The following photo shows what once did happen to Petone Beach before I sent

them my story. All without a scientists help or advise.

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Petone Beach 10.05. Sand and the beginning of the marine world food chain about to taken to the tip.

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Another day of beach grooming on Petone Beach. 11.04

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Clean seaweed arriving on Makara Beach for nature to turn it into a food source for marine specie. Note there is no mud. I used the seaweed at Makara to discuss the value of beach cast sea weed with F& B on a TV3 Campbell Live slot

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A trip to Makara found a school of yellow eyed mullet grazing on what we discovered was algae growing on the stones. In the intertidal zone algae grows quickly on rocks and sand as the tide goes out then as the tide comes in the yellow eyed mullet will eat the algae. Algae is the food source of all life in rock pools and shell fish. Chemicals in fresh water kills algae denying marine life a food source.

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When we found the algae in the gut of a yellow eyed mullet it provided links for more discoveries.

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Algae begins to grow on the mud flats as the tide goes out. The incoming tide lifts the algae providing not only yellow eyed mullet with their food source but mussels with their prime food source. In the background Iwi are filling in this wet land to build a car park.

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Hidden amongst the algae we found these small mysid shrimps the yellow eyed mullet had eaten. This was a major discovery for me as we had seen horse mackerel eating them at night as the fresh water came out of the submarine fresh water springs under the Point Howard Wharf. We know that Patea would have major submarine fresh water springs as mysid shrimps are the mackerels main food source. Overseas research found mackerel had been eaten by marine mammals and when the public asked why had they died they then found the mackerel had consumed toxic algae. Chemicals poison algae but does not kill fish

• nly marine mammals.

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When we opened up this yellow eyed mullet we found it bursting with mysid

• shrimps. We wondered what the yellow eyed mullet were eating at night until this
• discovery. Years ago a NIWA scientist wrote in his book Atlas of Freshwater

fishers the yellow eyed mullet return to the sea at night, obviously he went home early and missed then arriving. This NIWA misinformation appears in Mfish Plenary and DOC web site pages. Marine science in NZ has a lot of catching up to

• do. Note again yellow eyed mullet do not eat mud

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Getting a camera capable of taking a close up photo proved a challenge as I wanted to write a story about them. The camera cost $800 but the photo quality enabled the importance of the 7 millimetre mysid shrimps to be described in my story called Raising the bar to get more bait fish in the water that was published in the NZ Fishing Coast to Coast magazine. A story describing how the lack of marine knowledge at NIWA, DOC and MPI is destroying the intertidal zone and killing bait fish.

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• I asked Gerry Closs from Otago University if he could identify these seven

millimetres shrimps which he did - they are called Tenagomysis novae- zealandiae.

• He sent me a 2010 paper written by Adrian W.T Lift, Aparna Laf and Gerard

P Closs entitled Life history and reproduction of two abundant mysid shrimps in an intermittently open NZ estuary which has identified that we have five known species and one still to be identified. In NIWA publications they only name two specie such is their marine knowledge.

• As you can see from the photo they are almost transparent, which is their

defence on dark nights as yellow eyed mullet enter estuaries just on dark to feed on them. The Otago University paper describes “a mean density of 595 individuals per square metre” in an estuary which is massive food source for marine species.

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• Mysid shrimps feed on zoo plankton found in the inter face of seawater and
• freshwater. They are found in estuaries and in the many submarine freshwater

springs off our coasts. Mackerel and yellow eyed mullet can be seen feeding on the shrimps at night. This specie will be lost if the submarine springs off Patea and Wanganui are smothered in mud.

• There is serious avoidance to questions on display in the Joint Statement of

experts in the field of effects on fish and zooplankton. For example in Section 13 the question is asked “what are the effects of the sediment on fish eggs” but there was no reply. The answer should have been fish eggs become trapped in the mud when the prevailing wind is on shore and die. The other part to the question in Section 14 could have described what happened after the Wanganui

• floods. Then blue cod almost disappeared from the reefs just as they had

moved out of the Marlborough Sounds when the fast ferries were introduced.

• Section 15 also failed to identify the impact on the snapper food sources as

many know they do not eat mud.

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We found this yellow eyed mullet had gut full of salps. Salps travel in the currents and provide a major food source to many marine specie.

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Salps also eat fish eggs. Yellow eyed mullet keep the ocean in balance. There are many species of salps. Note they do not eat mud.

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Another yellow eyed mullet with salps

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Salps at Te Papa showing they do not eat mud and neither does yellow eyed mullet.

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We found yellow eyed mullet also had a gut full of kelp fly maggots. This became the subject for our science paper that the Minister of Conservation would not publish and nether would the NZ Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research. Both parties missed an opportunity to help describe the value of beach cast seaweed to marine specie. Previously both had been a party to a paper that described NZ science knows nothing about this marine food source.

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Another yellow eyed mullet gut exposed showing kelp fly maggots. Note they do not eat mud. We found the reason why the Minister of Conservation blocked publishing our discovery was she had just allowed grooming of beach cast seaweed in a marine reserve. The NZ Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research would not publish as Fitzsimons had become patron to a $800 million industry to turn beach cast seaweed into compost. Once again money gets in the way of sustainability.

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