Rubbish treatment of river frustrates
Hannah Walsh’s family have lived on the Omaka River’s banks for years, but she is sick of the “disrespect” of a place she holds dear. Photo: William Woodworth
A riverside resident is sick of finding rubbish and dumped offal on native reclaimed bush planted by her family.
The stretch of the Omaka River that runs along the back of the Walsh family’s vineyard off Dog Point Road is incredibly important to Hannah Walsh.
She has spent a lot of time over the years playing in the river, building huts and planting more than 7000 native plants.
But the family’s “little riverside oasis” which they have lived beside for generations is being ruined by people not showing the land the respect it deserves, Hannah says.
She is baffled by the disrespect shown to a place she holds dear to her heart.
“It’s not people just using the river and the banks, because I don’t blame people for wanting to enjoy this stunning river.
“It’s the couple of people disrespecting it that ruin things.”
From using the dry riverbed as a dumping ground for rubbish to ditching dead animal carcasses, the special spot is gradually being ruined.
“We as a family spent eight years clearing old man’s beard, wattle and willow from the banks and replaced it with kawakawa, kowhai, native flax, rimu, kauri and beech,” says Hannah.
“It’s even got irrigation if needed, it’s fully accessible for my dad who’s now a paraplegic after a motocross accident - it’s a little riverside oasis.”
The Walsh family have lived along the stretch of the Omaka since Hannah’s great-grandparents settled on a farm in the area which grandfather Bill turned into Highfield Estate Winery.
But the waterway is changing and Hannah spends afternoons spent clearing up empty beer cans and shifting fish into more suitable bodies of water to give them a better chance of survival.
“I definitely have an environmental streak which is probably why I’m taking this quite personally - I remember doing some quite intense climate change speeches at high school”, Hannah laughs.
She says a now long-gone population of shorebirds called stilts were scared away as people encroached on their territory.
“…obviously coming across dumped offal is never a fun surprise either,” says Hannah.
“People literally just run over some of our growing native trees on the banks for no reason, and in parts it literally has been turned into a highway of sorts with river channels filled in because of collapsing stone banks into ponds.”