[A long term resident of the valley has taken time out from building a chook house to comment on the state of our river. Reading through the problems, you will see how sad the situation is for our river. What a mess it is!]

Here are a few thoughts and groans about our river. It's been been getting worse for a long time and there are several reasons for this.

Starting with the headwaters, there are already problems for our river. New subdivisions are supposed to control sediment during and after construction but they are still having an effect however. The penalties imposed for this kind of breach are not deterring this outcome enough.

The potential for damage from subdivision on the slopes of our hills is worse. The soup that pours from the hill streams and drains is a disgrace. How can a couple of bails of pea straw to stop sediment leaving construction sites do an adequate job on the hill? Yes, report any abuse that you see.

Further down, stormwater discharges continue to put contaminants directly into the river from our roads. Urban dwellers are outraged by any rural farm directly discharging a contaminant to a waterway, yet here in town we collect the stormwater from the roads and discharge it directly to our rivers.

During heavy rainfall the city council is allowed by resource consent to discharge untreated sewage to our rivers because the pipes fill with rain and it can't get out. Imagine a dairy farmer using that excuse! Downstream again the park is a restored rubbish dump. It has a resource consent to discharge contaminants to the river and will do so for many years.

Recently, the new retention ponds on the floodplain, that we all love, did a similar thing. They were excavated up to five metres deep straight into groundwater, without discussion with the regional council who have concerns about the effects of this. Especially as the excavation dug into marine sediments: you can see shells everywhere.

The idea of stormwater detention is great to stop sediments getting into the river, but have you seen the sediment trap at the discharge of the second pond? It's nothing more than a piece of shade cloth that long ago ceased to even cover the discharge, let alone do anything.