Lake Furore

Plans for a watersports lake at Rabbit Island have stoked equal measures of outrage and enthusiasm. Geoff Collett takes a closer look at the plan and the fuss it has generated.

Rowing's not a sport that likes to upset people," says the sport's national PR man, on the phone from up north.

Quite the contrary. It's been on a high for ages now, its profile continuing to surf the golden (and bronze) wave from last year's Olympics. When the PR man talks about "Mahe and the twins", only the most determined and reclusive anti-sportsperson could not instantly twig to who he means. When he points to the fact that New Zealand will next year host the World Rowing Championships on Waikato's Lake Karapiro, it goes without saying that the country's appetite for the sport is only going to be stoked in the months ahead.

But here in Nelson where rowing is a sport with as proud and successful a heritage as almost anywhere people are upset. Rowing and a bunch of other aquatic sports want to create a lake for their pursuits in Nelson, and their chosen site, among the trees at Rabbit Island, is creating a stink.

The plan, centred on excavating something like 1.1 million cubic metres of sand to create a 2.5km long, 135m wide watercourse, might sound like an ambitious, even outlandish, idea, but that looks like the easy bit when lined up against the arguments and obstacles being talked up by the aggrieved.

Claims of long-forgotten DDT dumps, Maori burial grounds, complex land ownership issues, poorly understood ecology and geology, and vulnerable and under-appreciated wildlife have already been wielded. So have dark claims of backroom dealings at the Tasman District Council, which has spurred the controversy by suggesting it will stump up $3 million-plus towards getting the lake created, if and when the plans make it to reality.

The PR man, Richard Gee of Rowing New Zealand, might argue that the lake could give both the sport and Nelson a huge boost. The Nelson Rowing Club's vice-president, Kevin Strickland, might be able to point to a local fraternity with a big reputation 31 national titles in the past three years, 11 Nelson rowers in national teams in the past eight years, top rowing club in New Zealand in 2007 that is crying out for such a facility. The project's backers may be able to point to a wide range of sports, including kayaking, swimming, multisports, waka ama and waterskiing, that are dead keen to be part of the action.

But Ken Beck, the former Waimea county engineer whose name is immortalised in the island's main access road, Ken Beck Drive, summed up the contrary view in a letter to The Nelson Mail, in which he quoted a visiting Auckland local body politician: "Never allow this place to be changed. It is a priceless asset."

The environmental opponents in particular have been stung by news of the council's apparent enthusiasm for the project, when the same council has been dragging its heels over sorting out a comprehensive plan for the guardianship of the Waimea Estuary. The likes of Forest and Bird, the Ornithological Society and the National Council of Women have been agitating for such a plan "for a good few years", says Forest and Bird field officer Debs Martin.

"Passions are running very high about the Waimea Estuary I wouldn't underestimate that. This is another slap in the face from the council."

Kevin Heasman isn't at all surprised to read and hear all the complaints and arguments, and more. A bit exasperated, maybe, but not surprised.

He recalls the rather cynical observation of a Dunedin businessman he was talking to. "He was saying, `You'll never do something in Nelson, it'll just get killed. It's a retirement village things just don't happen'."

Heasman is more positive than that as he has to be, given that he has put himself up to lead the project to create the lake.

A keen kayaker, rower and general sports supporter and a marine biologist by training, he heads the Tasman Aquatic Multisport Development Trust a small group despite its mouthful of a name and lofty goals, made up of volunteers who are convinced that the lake will only be good for Nelson, and who insist it could enhance, not harm, Rabbit Island. Heasman thinks the trust hasn't been given a chance.

The idea has been around for years, originally driven by a local rowing parent, Ben Burger, who decided there had to be a better alternative to the rowing family's traditional lot in Nelson: pre-dawn rising to get children off to training on the Haven just as the sun comes up but before the wind kicks in; marathon trips to regattas at the South Island's only national-standard rowing course, at Lake Ruataniwha in the Mackenzie Country, up to 11 hours' drive away.

Heasman says Burger scoured the top of the south and passed his findings on to a wider group, whose attention zeroed in on Rabbit Island. Specifically, it liked the look of the Traverse, the water between Rough Island and Rabbit Island. Environmental and engineering issues sunk that plan, but while things went quiet, the idea never went away.

Heasman says the trust has been using the intervening two years to again search the top of the south for possible sites, and has returned to Rabbit Island.

It has done some preliminary investigations and is excited about what it has come up with: about 35 hectares at the island's western end, currently covered by pine forest, maybe 250m inland from the beach. It would be connected to the estuary by a canal so it could be filled and emptied on the tide.

Even allowing for that mammoth excavation project, and the 6m high banks that would be created around the lake, plus the necessary roads, parking and ancillary buildings, Heasman reckons that "if we had a magic wand and put the course in right now, I don't think the average person ... would even know".

The area of the island at stake is 8 per cent of the total; the amount of the estuary's tidal flow that would be needed to completely fill the lake is 1.2 per cent, he says.

"We don't think we're going to have a profound effect on water flow or a profound effect on the ecology," he adds, before waxing about the possibilities of creating new aquatic habitats, of new native plantings surrounding the course bringing in new birdlife.

"Judging by some of the newspaper letters, some people seem to think we thought this up in the pub last Friday," he says. "We have given it considerable thought, but we've avoided putting down a great deal of specifics, because we want public input before we got there."

Weirdly enough, Heasman echoes the same point made by many of the most vocal critics of the trust's plan to date that everyone is thrashing about in the dark because of a lack of information.

Perhaps the trust has been caught out by the plan spilling unexpectedly into the public arena both with the Tasman District Council signalling that it was considering budgeting up to $3.1 million towards the project in the 10-year plan it is in the process of finalising, and via a boosterish article in Rowing New Zealand's magazine Oarsport, prematurely announcing that "an eight-lane rowing course" with council funding was a done deal.

The author of that article was Rowing NZ's Gee. He apologises for getting ahead of himself: "I'm a PR man by trade; I like to accentuate the positive. If I jumped the gun on that, that's just me being enthusiastic for my sport."

Heasman says that if the trust's communications have been found wanting, it's only because it is learning as it goes along. It has now produced a concept proposal to answer some of the questions raised by the plan, and is working on a website.

But maybe the most contentious thing about the plan is the council's role. Its inclusion of the $3.1 million in its draft budgets has taken many by surprise, and generated a flurry of public submissions which the project will now have to withstand.

Chief executive Paul Wylie is at pains to point out that even if the budgeted millions are left in when the plan is signed off, there will be numerous opportunities for the council to review its support, and multiple hurdles the trust will have to clear to prove that the lake is going to work.

"There is no irrevocable commitment in any way. There is a commitment of sufficient interest to allow the trust to now move to the next stages knowing that there is a measure of support from the council, but it is far from a done deal," Wylie says.

The trust has had friends at the council before now former Tasman mayor John Hurley announced himself "110 per cent" behind the earlier plan for the Traverse, although the current mayor, Richard Kempthorne, has been more restrained in his comments.

With the Rabbit Island proposal in mind, Wylie made a point of organising a visit to Sydney's international regatta centre, site of the 2000 Olympic rowing competition and now a major recreational facility for the city, during a recent trip to Australia. He was well impressed.

The Penrith site was constructed from old quarries. "You didn't need to be a genius to figure out that on a flat sea-level island like Rabbit Island, that that could be done relatively simply, and it would probably instantly have a setting that they're only just getting towards over there because they've had to wait for all the trees to grow," he says.

If Wylie sounds like an enthusiast, he is quick to voice some qualifications and hedging.

"Rabbit Island is a unique asset. If this was to proceed, it would have to be seen as enhancing Rabbit Island, not in any way detracting from it. The council is satisfied enough at this stage to say that something like the proposal put in front of it could possibly be put in there in a way that added significantly to the recreational use of the island without detracting from any of the existing ones."

The council is clearly sensitive to the mounting challenges to its support for the plan. Kempthorne was moved to issue a press release on Tuesday, saying that the public response to the funding proposal means the council "now has community input into its decision-making process about whether to further explore the pros and cons of a watersports facility".

Heasman has clearly also recognised the perils of being seen to be too gung-ho about what might lie ahead. Asked if he feels optimistic, he responds: "It's a bit soon for optimism. I'm a generally optimistic person, and I am excited about this. I'm positive. What I don't want to come across as is, `Yes, I'm optimistic', because some people will read into that that I've worked some deals somewhere. Which is just not the case."

- © Fairfax NZ News