Tonnes of rotting weeds hauled from lake

June 17, 2016

Tonnes of rotting weeds hauled from lake

Dead ducks and cats were among debris found in the rotting heaps. Photo: Supplied

Eight tonnes of rotting weed was hauled out of a North Shore lake last month after complaints from local residents and lake users.

The weed has annoyed sports clubs and local schools using Lake Pupuke, located between Takapuna and Milford, prompting Auckland Council to remove it.

Roger Kerr, a novice coach at North Shore Rowing Club, said this year has been the most problematic for some time.

“This has been the worst year for several years now, a lot of years it’s not really an issue at all.

“Every day I was going down to the pontoon and lifting armfuls of this soggy, rotting stuff and dumping it in a corner.”

Mr Kerr explained some of the senior crews found the weed annoying to row through, and said it would slow their boats down.

“You would have these islands of weed, about the size of a dining room table, and if you ploughed into that it would slow you right down.”

Jaco Marais, Auckland Council contract coordinator who helped deal with the weed, said the heat of the summer was a contributing factor to the large amount of weed.

“The heat has been a big problem, especially [in] December, January, February.

“We had a barge in here raking it out of the lake. We estimated pulling out 200 cubic metres, which equates to eight tonnes of weed.”

Jenny Green, teacher in charge of Waterwise at Carmel College, said the weed was a major hassle to deal with.

“We had to spend about 20 minutes to half an hour clearing the weed before we could get the boats out into the water. You can imagine how much time it wasted.

“I wrote a letter to the council.”

Olympic kayaker Lisa Carrington was among those to express their concerns, tweeting: “We have to do something about this problem @AklCouncil. It’s not good for my paddling and for the residence [sic].”

Mr Marais said the council did its best to deal with the weed problem in response to complaints.

“It first started in Sylvan Park, when the weed was in front of private residences. Those residents were complaining and making a lot of noise.

Mr Marais said that not only was the weed producing a bad smell, animals were dying as a result of it too.

“It [the weed] smelt like Rotorua. We had lots of animals and fish dying, eels dying, ducks dying. We found a cat carcass too.

“We have rescued a few animals. The maintenance guys came every day.”

The weed was disposed of under trees in neighbouring Henderson Park.

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