The Kokopu Connection

Many people choose to live in North Shore City because of its unique natural environment. However, our streams, beaches and harbours aren't any where near as good as they could be.

To comply with the Resource management Act (1991) we have to apply to the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) for resource consents to legally operate our wastewater and stormwater systems. Before the ARC will give us these consents we need to show that we understand our environment and the effect of the stormwater and wastewater systems. We need to show that we are working to reduce these effects and improve the environment wherever possible.

North Shore City Council can work to improve the performance of the stormwater and wastewater systems, as individuals we must make sure that we are doing everything we can to stop polluting our environment.

What is the process for this project?

Stormwater

Stormwater is rainwater that falls onto roofs, roads and other hard surfaces. It is either collected in pipes or flows directly into streams, onto our beaches and to the sea.

Wastewater

Wastewater is literally waste water or sewage from our toilets, bathrooms, kitchens and laundries. It is piped to the wastewater network and through a series of pumping stations to our treatment plant at Rosedale.

What's in a name?

Streams provide a direct link from where we live and work to the sea and act as a direct pathway for pollution to get to our beaches.

Accordingly, streams matter if we want to care for our environment.

The Kokopu is a native trout that lives in our streams, but also spends part of its life cycle in the sea. If our streams are healthy, the Kokopu will be healthy and be present in good numbers.

This little native of our North Shore environment provides a good guide to how well we are caring for our environment. It also relies on the interaction of our streams and the sea, so provides an ideal "champion" for our project - hence - "The Kokopu Connection".

How we are analyse the information

To help us analyse all the information we have collected we have divided up the city into seven areas, or combined drainage catchments (CDCs). These are areas of the city that drain into similar environments. For example the Upper Harbour North CDC drains into the lower energy, tidal, upper Waitemata harbour while the East Coast Bays/Wairau CDC drains into the high energy, high use recreational areas along the east coast beaches.

These different areas have different issues that will need different solutions and have different environmental targets. We will be applying for seven sets of resource consents, one for each CDC.