Clean-up conditions agreed for ailing lake

A truce will allow Lake Horowhenua to finally get the treatment it has been waiting five years for.

The lake in Levin, which had raw sewage pumped into it for decades, has been under attack from purple loosestrife, a weed that spreads across waterways, killing other plants and affecting wetland birds.

But when Horizons Regional Council staff tried to get in and stop the outbreak over the past few years, they were assaulted, threatened and harassed by people who claimed ownership of the lake.

Horizons group manager of regional planning and regulatory Greg Carlyon said in October he wasn't going to put his staff at risk, refusing to let them near the water until those debating ownership of it had sorted their disagreements.

For the sake of their safety, council staff also decided to pull the plug on collecting water samples from the lake this summer, which was normally tested each year for algae bloom, to see if it was safe for people to swim in.

Algae bloom can cause skin rashes, nausea, stomach upsets and tingling and numbness around the mouth or tips of fingers.

But a turn-around agreement by a trust set up by the Maori Land Court in July last year to restore the lake has finally made it possible for council staff to get in and start cleaning up the lake.

"We reached an agreement with the lake trustees that we would have someone from their team alongside us as we did the work to get rid of the purple loosestrife," Mr Carlyon said.

"It's a nasty, invasive weed that we needed to get out of there."

Staff were also able to test the water, which had algae bloom in it as expected.

"It's common for this time of year because of the nutrient load in the lake and it just explodes into algae when we get dry conditions.

"We would not advise swimming in the lake."

Mr Carlyon hopes the recent communication breakthrough will mean some major progress on cleaning up the lake will begin. "We need to look at other ways of restoring the lake alongside local Maori. We could look at flushing in more fresh water, for example."

- © Fairfax NZ News