Dirty rivers force councils together

Canterbury's two biggest councils are throwing off traditional divisions to clean up Christchurch's urban waterways.

Environment Canterbury (ECan) directors and Christchurch City Council (CCC) general managers have signed a letter of agreement to jointly run a public awareness campaign this winter to improve the quality of urban rivers and streams.

Staff from both councils are meeting regularly, and an external advisory committee has been established to guide the campaign.

There is an expectation within both councils that there will be closer collaboration in the future.

Tim Davie, ECan's acting director of investigations and monitoring, said a 2006 diesel spill in the Heathcote River which led to the prosecution of Christchurch company Steelbro was the catalyst for the agreement.

Davie said that in the past year the councils had tried to better integrate their work programmes.

"While we've never been completely divorced from one another ... we're trying to align our work," he said.

City Councillor Sue Wells, of Opawa, who lives near the Heathcote River, said both councils wanted healthy rivers and described the separation between the councils as an "artificial divide".

"Getting better collaboration is something everybody would want," she said.

Martin Clements, a trustee of the Avon-Heathcote Estuary Ihutai Trust, who is a member of an external advisory committee to the councils, applauded the move.

"The ocean pipeline is a huge step forward in improving estuary health and if the rivers were cleaned up also, that would be a huge plus for the city."

- © Fairfax NZ News