The destruction of the Ruamanga River
While Wellington Regional Council along with other organisations is asking the public to become conscious of the Wairarapa’s eel population, in particular Tuna Kuwharuwharu (Longfin Eel), it seems the council has become the eel’s worst enemy, sanctioning the bulldozing of a straight channel all the way along the Ruamanga River from Mount Bruce in Tararua District down to Lake Ferry at Cape Palliser – the main highway for all eel migration along the Wairarapa valley.
Wairarapa fisher and fishing journalist Graham Howard has been almost a lone voice in speaking out against what he says is the destruction of vital fish habitat in not only the Ruamahanga River but its tributaries, the Waipoua, Waingawa and Waiohine Rivers.
Graham says this is due to the straightening of the river for erosion control which has removed the pools, runs and meanders which are the habitat of elvers (baby eels) crayfish, bullies and other aquatic life that need them to survive.
“Every eel in the Wairarapa Valley, from Lake Wairarapa to the headwaters of the Ruamahanga River pass through the river as elvers.
“They live, as they pass through the system, in the rocks that form the pool ‘aprons'. (aprons are the collections of rocks and boulders deposited just downstream of the pools).
“They would have killed thousands of eels when the bulldozers went through where all the elvers live. They would never have survived that.
“By law they are supposed to have so many pools per kilometre of river but this isn’t happening.”
Ironically, Graham says, he enjoyed the best fishing ever at the end of the summer of 2009 downstream of the bulldozers as all this dead fish matter fed fish further downstream, for one season only.
It is not just the these river’s fauna that is being affected by erosion control, Graham says.
The work is also quickening the flow of the Ruamahanga, with other impacts like lowering the aquifier (80 percent of a river’s water flows underground).
He also notes that the road that runs alongside Lake Ferry is suffering from erosion for the first time in its history because the lake bed is being filled by sediment from the run off which increases the height of the waves created by the regular north westerly winds that hit the area.
Following are excerpts from a Letter to the Editor of the Wairarapa Times Age which was written by Graham in 2009.
“While there have been great strides made by many organisation and individuals (in improving the ecology of the Wairarapa), there has been a concerted effort by the Wellington Regional Council to destroy the natural beauty, ecology and wonderful trout fishing resource that is our Ruamahanga River and its tributaries, the Waipoua, Waingawa and Waiohine.
For the past two years a large number of locals and visitors have observed with growing alarm the blatant vandalism that has been visited on our rivers.
Gone are the pools, runs and reaches. Now the river is wide, featureless and barren in many of its past fish-filled reaches.
Gone are the little eels, crayfish, bullies and bottom dwelling fauna that lived in the aprons of the many pools.
Eels are a special case. They are reportedly under huge stress in the Wairarapa with numbers in serious decline.
Every eel in the Wairapa Valley, from the lake to the headwaters of the Ruamahanga, pass through the Ruamahanga as elvers.
They live, as they pass through the system, in the rocks that form the pool “aprons.”
How do you think they survived the bulldozer rippers that have totally destroyed kilometres of this crucial habitat?
Earlier this year there was an article on the front page of the Times Age detailing the concerns of the residents of Lake Ferry where the road to the outlet is being eroded away.
This road has been in existence for a hundred years. What has changed? I have been reliably informed that the lake bed has risen sharply since they started remedial work upstream.
Guess where the sediment that used to hold the gravel and rock beds together came from - there's none left where I have fished for the past 40 years.”
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