Ruapehu Lahars
The predictions are that massive lahars will overflow from Ruapehu in the near future. In one of the more extreme fundamentalist decisions made by the Government, they decided not to did a trench to allow the lake to harmlessly drain after some religious nutters claimed it would hard the spiritual integrity of the mountain. Local authorities have rightfully complained about cultural concerns being given a higher priority than the risk to life
So instead of spending $200,000 to stop a problem developing they have spent far more on how to cope with the lahar flows when they do come.
Not often a Government is stupid enough to choose an option that both costs more, and delivers less benefits and is mroe risky, but hey well done team.
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January 5th, 2007 at 11:32 am
You spelled correctness wrong.
January 5th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Horror! You are just a racist DPF. The master race are not to be questioned about their beliefs by the likes of you……all hail the great God “Maori”!
Yet another example of why Brash was spot on with Orewa 1 and why his principled stand will be sorely missed…
January 5th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
regrettably I think you will find that the Minister behind this absurd idea was in fact Nick Smith. But I guess it’s right up there with his normal standard of decision.
No Taniwha were harmed during the typing of this comment.
January 5th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Hi all
This will be a double whammy when the reconstruction of roads occurs.
Miracrously, the Tanewha would have survived the mud flows and we will need to pay monies into it’s bank account to carry on building the road.
Yours Adolf
January 5th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
For those unable to read the article
(IE nigel6888)
This apparently straightforward $200,000 job was rejected by the Minister of Conservation, Chris Carter, on the grounds that it would be dangerous for those who did the work.
January 5th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Stop worrying, DOC haven’t sold the film rights and its all on hold until negotiations are complete. I gather the lahar flow risks are not considered to be serious by the Govt so the Maori bashing may be premature.
January 5th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Funny how one editors speculation becomes another bloggers fact: “More likely, he was swayed by the opposition of local iwi…”
January 5th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
“Not often a Government is stupid enough to choose an option that both costs more, and delivers less benefits and is mroe risky…”
Not often? Stick that on a Tui billboard.
January 5th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
“Not often a Government is stupid enough to choose an option that both costs more, and delivers less benefits and is mroe risky”
Absolutely wrong! It happens all the time probably daily.
Governments choose the more expensive option for the taxpayers – it gives them a raison detre, something to do. Governments love the religious and other ceremonial stuff becuase it puts them on show that they are helpting us poor people who cannot help ourselves.
And dont forget the prime directive – it must not only be expensive but it must be the most cost inefficient and labour intensive option – because unemployment kills governments.
Now there’s money going into CD exercises, fitting alarms, and dont forget the employment created by the massive cleanup operation.
January 5th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Hamish – I recall the timign of events clearly. The local Iwi objected and Chris Carter/DOC bakctracked on their plans. As more and more people objected to having the spiritual integrity of a mountain be placed above saving lives, then suddenly at the last minute a new excuse was found that digging the trench would be too difficult or dangerous.
January 5th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Seems nuts to me. If even one person is hurt by this it’s too much of a price for spiritual values. At the very least it seems likely there will be a lot of damage to property, and a great deal of destruction of nature too.
The other factor which concerns me is the danger of a colossal steam explosion if the volcano becomes slightly active again.
January 5th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
strangely I also recall the timing of events. Smith was clearly involved, perhaps he ducked the decision until after the election? I withdraw my comment on the quality of his decisionmaking…
January 5th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
They are not stupid David. Everything Labour does is to secure their voting base.
January 5th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
yup thought so. The report on options was provided in 1999 and Smith punted it.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentPage.aspx?id=41776
January 5th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I remember the debate at the time and the reason given was that dropping a digger of on the edge of the crater and digging a trench was spiritually offensive to the local Iwi.
But then how about the roads,ski lifts,snow ploughs,buidlings,etc etc which reside on the ”sacred mount”.Try and get your head around that one!
The cost of the early warning detection system plus earth works was something like 2 million versus 200k for the trench.This does not include the clean up which could be millions as well.
The waste of money is bad enough,I just hope
no one gets killed by Carter and his PC crap!
January 5th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
“Advocating Government intervention” David??
Surely you arent advocating spending tax payers money on an ill founded project with a very small chance of sucess. ( thats why this isnt done all the time )
Only last year this was called throwing money at a problem. Gee Don Brash leaving has really changed things.
Maybe you should move the seat of government from Wellington. Only a fundamentalist would want to stay there when an earthquake is allmost certain. Even some still choose to live in Wellington, “inspite of all the warning”
January 5th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
The herald states that there is a strong possiblity of a lahar of 1 million cubic metres and claims this would be twice the size of the Tangiwai 1953 lahar. In the Tangiwai disaster
2 million cubic metres of water flooded into the river. It seems to me that the article is deliberately scaremongering.
Chris Carter’s reason for not digging the trench is credible enough. It’s only commonsense that it would be incredibly dangerous to bulldoze on the peak of a mountain not to mention the danger the lahar presents.
The government hasn’t been given a viable way of emptying the crater lake.
January 5th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Shame on you racist doubters.
Of what consequence are lives when there are mendicant tummies to be tickled?
January 6th, 2007 at 9:22 am
What about siphoning? That could be taken away afterwards too, without offending any spirits.
January 6th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Gloria,
There was never going to be a bulldozer to do the job.The plan was to drop a small digger at the crater and dig a trench to siphon the water from the crater.This was to be done before the lake rose enough to trigger a lahar so the digger operator was never endangered.
The Ruapehu district council was pushing very hard for this to happen but was overruled by DOC.As DPF posted,the safety issue was only used by Carter as a smoke screen.
January 6th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Towaka read the govt report:
“This option involves using earth-moving machinery to excavate a trench through or partly through the tephra dam to form a channel that would allow the Crater Lake waters to drain to a safe level. The evaluation considered eight methods for creating the trench: light or heavy excavators or bulldozers, sluicing, explosives, bombing from the air and manual labour.”
In my considerable experience a “light digger” would be a waste of time, anything less than a 8t excavator couldnt accomplish anything.
With ‘bombing from the air’ on the list , it is obvious that those responsible for the cave Creek tradgedy are still around, as none of this reveals any heavy earthmoving experience
January 6th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Fuck the Maori s! Oi….Mud race savages! Get into the 21st century…now! Or you will remain a joke…
January 7th, 2007 at 7:14 am
James, your language is straight out of the US Deep South pre-1960s. I thought I had logged on to David Dukes’ blog. Get with the zeitgeist or you will remain a foulmouthed ignorant bigot.
January 7th, 2007 at 8:45 am
“Fuck the Maori s! Oi….Mud race savages! Get into the 21st century…now! Or you will remain a joke…”
There was me thinking that moderation had actually achieved something on this forum, other than slowing debate to non-existence.
January 7th, 2007 at 10:03 am
A joke? Well, at least no-one can say that racist psychopaths like you are a joke, James – we take you deadly seriously.
January 8th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
3 bites from one troll….not bad!
Calm down fellas…you have been done.
January 8th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Easy to say that now…
January 8th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
I have said it many times in the past too Milty…I deplore racism and have taken on many Left wing hypocrites who handwring over Maori injustices while pushing for more Welfare state “solutions” (Final ones perhaps?) that keep Maori down and desperate.
Seeing you and the others leap onto a hook as you have just done cracks me up.
January 8th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
James, So your reason for saying that was simply to offend?
January 8th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Not really Andrew…it was more to shock and draw out a response which I got.The point was to ruffel the feathers of a few holier than thou types who think all pro Maori apartheid policies are good and are what Maori need.I say these policies are in fact what’s destroying Maori individuals who are told that they are “special” and therefore are not as “human” as the rest of us therefore requiring “special treatment’ by the state.
I find that attitude disgusting and very racist in itself.Racism is found more amongst the ill educated….a group the left is inseparable from.
January 8th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
So, by turning up bawling racist abuse you imagine you’ve made some kind of witty and subtle point? You do realise that makes not the slightest bit of sense?
NB: the educated spell it “ruffle” – not to mention, “holier-than-thou”, “ill-educated” etc. We usually put a space at the end of a sentence, too. I think you’ll find the possession of a good education offers little guidance as to political leanings.
January 8th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Milty….chill out bro.The fact that you and the others took the bait and responded as you have tells me much.Had I posted something similar about the Jews I doubt I would have got any response from you about it….not your chosen group of convenience I would a imagine….;-)
Sorry but real people make typos….a bit different from wanting race based privileges enforced by the State.
January 8th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
I look forward to seeing you test your theory by invading some other thread with crap about Jews – I doubt you will though – not your chosen group of convenience I imagine…
January 8th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I have done just that on more than one occasion when making a point in the context of the thread.I got only one bite because everyone else new I was fishing to get a response.You and the others f got sucked in….get over it son.
January 8th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
You have made just as little sense on other threads? Now, this I can believe.
January 8th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Give it up Milty…..you tried and were found wanting.
January 8th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
By someone either racist or lacking in common sense – I can live with that.
January 12th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Not that it is likely to matter at the end of a thread like this but here is the real story from New Scientist. The key snippet:
The monitoring and alarm system is the result of an 8-year review following the 1996 eruption. Critics argue that a drainage trench would have been much simpler, cheaper and safer, and that the idea was abandoned because of spiritual objections by Maori. “Nothing is further from the truth,” maintains Keys [A geologist]
Digging a trench would have been dangerous and could have dealt with only this lahar threat, he says. Lahars are often caused suddenly by eruptions, which are largely unpredictable. Making better-protected roads and bridges, as well as an alarm system, is a better option, he argues