Water rubbished

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 275, 21 February 1989, Page 4

Water rubbished

No wonder the procrastination of installing a water treatment system has continued on for so long with attitudes like those of Cr Frew and others, as reported in last week's paper. We assume Cr Frew is fortunate enough to have to rely on rain water, rather than town supply. On the other hand, perhaps she has developed an immunity to the many bugs in the primordial soup this town calls 'water'. We would like to share some of our observations with Cr Frew: Since moving to Ohakune our family have had a number of bouts of diarrhoea and vomiting, especially our two and a half year old, which is highly likely to be attributable to the water. When running a bath after a day or so of rain, it is not unusual to postpone the bath altogether. Besides the brown colour, one can pick out numerous pieces of weed and the occasional snail or worm. Another new experience since coming to

Ohakune is having to regularly clear a blocked washing-ma-chine filter. This can be f necessary after only two or three loads, during wet weather, a job unheard of in other areas of New Zealand. We consistently boil our drinking water and have to consider it as no better than that of a third world country. Perhaps we should also boil our son's teeth cleaning water, as he is far too young to avoid swallowing some. Finally, let us refer you to Consumer, June 1988, which reports measurement of faecal coliform levels, (bacteria from sewerage) in Ohakune water. It was well above acceptable levels with all samples failing the Board of Health Standard. The Public Health risk associated with Ohakune water has been recognised and well documented for years now. It is disgraceful that the council has not acted with more urgency to a matter of fundamental importance to public health. When is the council going to use actions instead of words?

P &.R

Wilson

Pot hole for tourists In reply to your article in the gossip column on January 31 - "Home in a hole in the ground", I would like to confirm that it took me, and eventually two spies, two hours and six pieces of 4 by 2 to extract my caravan for the "pot hole". This incident further confirmed my fears of what we are doing to

ourselves as a nation. We were returning from a holiday in the "sun" up north, in what I presume is meant to be one of our main tourist areas, and this area being similar to the Waimarino as a playground but in a different period, interested me in the way they were handling a bad season. Sure enough, practically all the retailers had gloom and doom written all over their faces before you got near them. They certainly did not give you the impression they were glad to see you, more of an impression of 'go away and let me be morbid in peace'. The bigger companies that could afford "front people" faired better, in that they made you feel welcome, suggested other things to do etc. However, here we found another strange happening that appeared in every tourist trip we took, it was a game called "where is the Kiwi". We had ev-

ery race available running these attractions except our own. Scot doing the Cape Reinga trips, a Belgarian piloting the boat to the hole in the rock (Cape Brett) a Pom on the reception desk at Waitangi etc. What's the story, are we ashamed of our country? Then there is ourselves. Ask someone (off the street) where something was and the majority of the time you got "dunno" and you got the impression they couldn't give a damn anyway. And finally there is our attractions. If you find them amongst the gorse, blackberries, pot holes etc., you can't read what is on the notices as they have been vandalised or faded beyond recondition. Which brings me to the pot hole. Instead of commemorating the "last spike", it appears we are to commemorate a bloody great pot hole - a fabulous tourist attraction.

Alan

Murdie.

Waiouru Sledge defended...

I am writing to express my disapproval at the tone in which J. Gordon attacked Sledge in last week's edition. Waimarino readers may not be aware but Sledge was a regular contributor to a previous local newspaper that Waiouru had. While he did attack females, he did it in a manner that made you laugh and not take serious offence. Sledge has been the best publicity we ladies could have got. He is obviously opposed to radical females as J. Gordon appears to be and this was demonstrated in his earlier letters when he was not opposed to what we were trying to achieve but how we were going about it. I wish to encourage Sledge to keep writing because if we can't laugh at ourselves and realise how insular we become in our small towns then the future of free speech through the likes of 'Mailbag' would be sadly missed.

D.

Johns.

... and thanked The Waiouru Community Resource Centre would publicly like to thank the Editor of the Desert Express, Mr Murray Fitchett, for his continual support and generosity towards the Resource Centre. It has been much appreciated and his valuable assistance will be sadly missed. It is at this point we would like to add, although we are pursuing the assistance of the Human Rights Commission re 'Sledge', we would like it to be ac-

knowledged that we did not take offence to it's publication in the Desert Express and the Empty Page, but to the content of the 'Sledge' letters. Actually, thanks are in order to these newspaper so we are all made aware of the tunnel visioned 'Sledges' amongst us.

Waiouru Community

Resource Centre Core Group. ... and attacked In view of the latest excerpts from 'Sledge' it has become extremely obvious that the odious and sexist comments have had a detrimental affect on our resident community. Over the last five months the publishing of 'Sledge' letters has had and unexpected payoff for the Resource Centre. We have gained several new members who initially came because they were appalled at the slights implied during the setting up of the Resource Centre. Through it all we have patiently endured these attacks while maintaining our service to the Waiouru Community. Now, because of numerous complaints to the Resource Centre, we have forwarded all excerpts from 'Sledge' to the Human Rights Commission. We trust with the print of this, 'Sledge' will see that the comments haven't been appreciated and that we have endured them long enough.

Waiouru Community

Resource Centre Core Group.