\u201cThere were literally hundreds of dead eels and fish along a good chunk of the stream.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people don\u2019t realise that outside drains go into stormwater drains that lead into the nearest stream and then into the sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis could be miles away and it will still wash down to the river.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said in the past three months alone around 1000 hours of volunteer work alongside \u201clots of money\u201d had been put into the stream\u2019s maintenance. <\/p>\n
Volunteer work mainly included planting, weeding and the monitoring of PH levels to detect pollution levels – particularly high alkaline numbers.<\/p>\n
Common pollutants included silt, plaster, cement and paint.<\/p>\n
Dead fish in Campbells Bay Creek.<\/p>\n
Restore Hibiscus and Bays catchment adviser Viv Walker said Campbells Bay Creek was part of a \u201cfragile ecosystem\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201c89% of New Zealand\u2019s native freshwater system is threatened with, or at risk of, extinction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a misconception stormwater is treated before going to the streams and ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll stormwater drains lead to streams. There\u2019s a catchment but it doesn\u2019t catch things like paint and cleaner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteer Ash Walsh who has lived at her creek side property for 26 years and helped to restore and upkeep the stream, said it was \u201cdevastating\u201d to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could see such progress, so we\u2019ve been left thinking \u2018where do we start now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh worked on keeping the stream habitat healthy \u201cmainly every weekend\u201d by replanting non-toxic plants and clearing rotten debris.<\/p>\n
She said her children for years used to play with an eel they named \u201cSam\u201d who had since gone missing.<\/p>\n
Walker said council staff had visited the creek but because the spill likely happened on Sunday they were unable to find the source of the pollutant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s now a fire in my belly to create further awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n
A campaign called \u201cNo Paint in Drains\u201d was being launched by Restore Hibiscus and Bays with the aim to work alongside local communities to restore riparian margins and improve stream habitats. <\/p>\n
Auckland Council has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere were literally hundreds of dead eels and fish along a good chunk of the stream. \u201cMost people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,51,1558,12688,34692,690,9060,37827,8321,193631,1874,305,24176,1404,296,111,43,139,529,69,9346,4987,57642,18484,12633,11561,50961,3608,102],"class_list":["post-503665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-auckland","tag-been","tag-chemicals","tag-creek","tag-dead","tag-decades","tag-eels","tag-fish","tag-flushed","tag-found","tag-have","tag-hundreds","tag-industrial","tag-into","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-packed","tag-pollution","tag-restoring","tag-shore","tag-spent","tag-strength","tag-volunteers","tag-were","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}