My apologies to council I was pretty miffed at their decision to hand over our water assets and services to combined Wellington regions water corporation Tiaki Wai and suggested their pay be docked. I want to be on record as saying that while I don’t agree with their decision I believe they are all working for the best of our community. It is my opinion though that this decision was made with background noise they are finding it difficult to block out from central government edicts and the real concern that without good water management they could be opening up our water system to contamination as happened in Hastings. My real concern is they are losing control of our local water at our expense and under duress, of government who know that clean water is the scarcest natural resource in the world. Getting control over our clean water opens the door to water bottling for profit at the least locally, who knows nationally. If this was to share in some way with those across the World dying for want of clean water, then I have no problem with it. But it is like all things if our natural resource can be exploited by business for profit, they will and we the locals will pay for their access to it. If you think it impossible remember the old coke a cola factory that had “consent” to bottle water for sale. My concern we are all being played, council, water users alike. The question remains who owns not the water but access to it, and who pays for that access. And how do we pay, volumetric water metering financially restricting our access to water, wai, why? We need to encourage Council now, to block out the noise regarding Amalgamation and listen to their community.

A “thank you” to Teresa Homan for sending this letter to The Upper Hutt Connection.

22/05/26