Bay of Plenty Regional Council chairman John Cronin must be delusional if he really believes that 'our harbour” is still 'beautiful”…and confused as well, when he writes about 'restoring” it. Surely, if the harbour is pristine, there should be no need for any restoration. There is no beauty in stinking rotten piles of sea lettuce, nor in shellfish beds closed because of toxic algal blooms, and only sadness in walking on mud, where once there was sand.
The truth is, that the water quality on our beaches, in our harbour and estuaries and rives that discharge into it, is the worse that it has been for perhaps 50 years. And this situation will probably deteriorate further, before it improves. The problems facing the clean-up of our catchment area are enormous and will take decades to rectify. Now is not the time for trumpeting about the benefits of good research. That will come if and when a comprehensive scientifically based restoration plan has been successfully implemented.
Don Elder, chairman of the now almost defunct SOE Solid Energy made a similar error when talking up the value of the 'Canola Oil” project in Central Otago. Mr Elder has suddenly gone silent…and all that whistles there is the wind.

Bruce Cambie, Tauranga.