Ngāti Rangitihi concerned with risk of contaminated sludge in Rotoitipaku pouring into Tarawera Awa

Ngāti Rangitihi is supporting the Tūwharetoa action to restore Rotoitipaku. We are concerned with the risk of the contaminated sludge in Rotoitipaku pouring out into the Tarawera Awa.

Watch the documentary by Mihingarangi Forbes – Mata Reports Episode 2: Toxic Legacy – A Fast Track to Failure? – below to hear an interview with Te Mana o Ngāti Rangitihi Trust Chairman, Leith Comer, on this topic. Leith was born and bred in Matatā, and his whānau worked at the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill in Kawerau.

Full documentary and article:

Transcript below (Leith’s interview segment runs from the 30:32 to 33:15 timecode)

“It really took the Ngāti Rangitihi Settlement and our negotiations with the Crown for me to really understand the destruction and the desperate situations that our people find themselves in as a result of the mill. 

“There was a major number of people who loved at Matatā working at the mill. So the mill had a positive impact upon the little villages of Matatā, Murupara, Te Teko as their source of work,” says Leith.

But, as noted in the interview, that contribution came at a cost to the surrounding iwi like Ngāti Rangitihi. Our Waitangi claim highlighted how the Crown’s actions had impacted our whenua and awa, including the Tarawera River.

“It was the Tasman Pulp and Paper Enabling Act of 1954 which enabled the owners of the mill to put anything they wanted into the river, and they did,” says Leith.

“We started to see the impact of that beautiful river being destroyed because on the one end when you see the water coming in from Lake Tarawera to the end where you see it going past the mill out to sea, what really bad impact the mill had on the quality and the mauri of the Tarawera Awa.”

Leith isn’t just concerned about the environmental damage that has already occurred. He’s worried about future contamination if a bund, an embankment, between Rotoitipaku and the Tarawera River fails.

“It’s a strip of land that holds back the sludge that’s in Rotoitipaku and all you need to do is to look down 10 kilometres down the river to Edgecumbe, when we saw what happened when the Edgecumbe earthquake took place – it destroyed parts of the bank of the Rangitaiki River and we had enormous flooding.

“So it is a huge risk and we are very keen to make sure that whoever is responsible for causing that risk is called to account and made to restore that land so that the risk of pollution from Rotoitipaku into the Tarawera Awa is done away with.”

Mihingarangi questions whether it is Tasman Pulp and Paper who should be held to account.

“I think it probably goes back that far, but it certainly is Norske, who are at this stage departing,” says Leith.