Visitors: Gary Christopher, Khalid Qadri, Kevin Jackson, Ross Mosley (leaves as a member)
President Michele:Our new President Michele welcomed this morning guests
Sustainability and the environment
Michele gave us an update on Seagrass. Although seagrass accounts for less than 0.2% of the world’s oceans, they produce up to 10% of the carbon buried in ocean sediment, (27 Terra grams of carbon per year). Seagrasses can store up to twice as much carbon as tropical rain forests. Seagrass draw carbon dioxide from the water as part of the photosynthesis, and then traps it in the mud up to 27 times faster than rain forests.
However, seagrass meadows have been reducing worldwide, with the global loss of seagrass between 2-5% per year, compared to tropical forests have half a percent. There are restoration projects around the world to which have successfully directly sowed seaweed in the wild and in New Zealand the early stages of seed have been taken from Port Nelson and assembled trial to deliver a New Zealand seed which has worked successfully on the first planting. The three year project will develop a blueprint for seagrass restoration to be carried out across New Zealand. Large scale seagrass meadows will not help combat climate change but they'll support biodiversity, water quality and sediment stabilization.
Induction New Member – Ross Mosley – congratulations and welcome to the club.
Speaker –
Speaker introduction - Buddy introduced the speaker Gary Christopher.
Gary specialises in all things involved in storm water over the last 30 years. Gary came to Tauranga 7 years ago and specialises in the development of storm water solutions. About 20 years ago he decided to get out of the game of pipes because to replace existing pipes is very expensive and doesn’t solve the issues. Up to 70% of catchment in the Tauranga region is under capacity and prone to localized flooding. This also creates water quality issues as the overflows go into the harbour, washing out petrochemicals and rubbish into the environment. The main issue as he sees it is the systems that are maintained by councils are inadequate, however maintaining existing systems regularly is too expensive for councils. In Auckland’s case they only clean their storm water systems once a year.
Gary went on to talk about filtration products that he's developed, including a filter wall which is able to catch capture sediments and pollutants and make your storm water five to six times cleaner. So this replaces vertical pipes and designed to be stowed in existing catchment systems. The filtration is made of natural wool inside filter elements. Gary also talked about his largest project ever, which was the Auckland Airport, which treats a phenomenal amount of water.
He gave us an illustration of the various inventions that he has developed for storm water systems. The easiest way to deal with water is for the water to go into the ground rather than through pipes. So, he has developed along with a Holland company a system called Eco cell which is a mesh that is 95% fresh year. He has a moulding plant in Auckland. These systems are able to store enormous amounts of water before it was able to drain into the soil. They have been tested to take weights of up to 65 tonnes, which is far superior to those that are manufactured from poor quality products out of China which may take only 5 to 10 tons of weight above them.
Gary then demonstrated with pictures a couple of local streets which have very successfully been treated. He then went on to show a number of other different systems and solutions that he has invented for storm water.
Adrian Pohoi thanked Gary for his presentation and just asked how often does Gary watch the weather? He confirmed that he has 15 rain gauges at his house!
Announcements:
Behind Closed Doors – Shiv Thammalia
Shiv - Behind Closed Doors confirmed that the budget for the event has now been calculated and has the potential to raise $10,000 for the Tauranga Housing Trust. Henry's in charge of operations, Viv Dykes - sponsorship. Viv also looking to raise extra funds with stalls, Christmas cake & Craft Items
Next Meeting - Club Assembly
Crystal Palace
Michele encouraged members to volunteer for Crystal Palace breakfast fundraiser. We have the opportunity to do this again. The Club needs someone from the club to lead this event with three months to go.
As a Club, we have a decision to make this Friday. I've listed some pros and cons of taking on this opportunity, which has raised up to $30 000 in the past under the leadership of Sally Morrison. (For those who may not know, breakfast in this very atmospheric venue, the Crystal Palace - a great big "tent" set up temporarily down town somewhere during the Tauranga Arts Festival - is accompanied
by a speaker.) In the past these have included Marilyn Waring, Nicky Hager and Paul Moon. This year it may be Jared Savage - still to be confirmed by the Arts Festival Trust.
You'll be able to tell what my view is, especially as several members have already said they're keen to support this project. However, going ahead does depend on someone with the time and energy being ready to take the lead. Could that be you?
Parting Thought Rosalie Liddle Crawford
