Eel deaths

Bad news. The gully systems of Hamilton have, over the years, been used as part of the cities stormwater infrastructure which reticulates rainwater from the roads and house roofs down to the Waikato river. However, the gully streams are also shared by many of our indigenous freshwater species. All this is fine and works well until some person spills or deposits a pollutant (poison) into that waterway that kills everything, as it flows downstream or until it gets diluted sufficiently not to be toxic.  This is what happened at the Haswell Street storm water outlet killing eleven eels. The small gully arm that runs up behind Sexton Road to Haswell place used to be well stocked with banded kokopu but of recent years they have all gone. It only takes one person to use the stormwater drain for the dumping of unwanted liquid toxins to clear life out of a stream. While we appreciate that this is not always intentional, there needs to be more publicity around managing our waterways. Anything other than fresh water needs to go into the sewer system via the laundry tub or the gully traps where grey water exits the house.