Aid money to fund waste management programme

When New Zealand PM John Key and his entourage visited the Cook Islands during their goodwill Pacific tour in July 2009, they were taken on a brief lagoon cruise and stopover on Motu Koromiri in Muri lagoon. The event was to showcase Muri lagoon as one of the premier tourism sights in Cook Islands (together with the magnificent Aitutaki lagoon) but which was experiencing huge pressures arising from tourist developments and inadequate wastewater management systems making it difficult to keep the lagoon as beautiful as nature intended it to be.
On the same day, PM John Key announced the intention of his government to boost the amount of aid to our country over the next three years. He specifically expressed the hope that some of the extra funds were to be used for environmental purposes to protect the lagoon.
Now he has delivered on his promise with the signing of a memorandum of understanding in December 2009 between the Cook Islands Government and NZAID and AusAID which are willing to fund the design of a waste management programme for Rarotonga and Aitutaki.
NZAID has agreed that the design of such a project will be overseen and managed locally by a steering committee consisting of public, private sector and community members who are directly involved in waste initiatives.
Public Health are involved in the project with their spokesperson in Health Planning (Sanitation) saying the design phase will identify the following:
• where we are at with respect to waste management;
• where we are to get to
• work plan and budget
• monitoring and evaluation
• integration with other initiatives (eg the proposed European Union funding for Muri lagoon)
• and targeting structure
The steering committee will hold their first meeting on Friday 22 January and will have many of the original members of the pilot project for Takitumu Lagoon and personnel from Infrastructure and Outer Islands Planning.
Former Mayor, Teariki Matenga said the new project will move beyond research and monitoring and on to the next phase of finding practical solutions by developing technologies to manage the wastewater (from septic tanks). The technology must be capable to reducing the risk of nutrient and other contaminants runoff into the surrounding streams and underlying springs which will inevitably flow to the lagoon and ocean.
Peter Tierney from the NZ High Commission says the project is all about helping to protect the ‘clean, green image’ of the Cook Islands.
The initial stages of the programme are to evaluate on-site wastewater options that will meet the specific conditions and circumstances of the Cook Islands and the islands of Rarotonga and Aitutaki in particular. It will involve working together with the Cook Islands government agencies, the European Union (EU), businesses and homeowners to make this project a success.
The NZAID project does not include Muri which has its own dedicated EU funded scheme with its own steering committee called Muri Care Group working with EU consultant, Teresa Manarangi-Trott.

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