Saving Muri
We’re getting very close to tipping the scale to where we’re damaging our lagoon permanently. There are more days now in the year when people shouldn’t be swimming in our lagoon.

You think Muri Lagoon is a postcard come to life but you’ve never been much for swimming? Don’t worry – at the rate it’s being polluted, you’ll soon be able to walk on it.
Overkill? Maybe. But chew on this thought: a number of locals we talked to for this feature told tales of swimming at Muri as kids and how they wouldn’t think of entering the water now.
The good news is that several projects are currently in a state of play to clean up our lagoons and prevent further contamination.
They range from studying the effectiveness of eco Trenches in the Takitumu vaka to National Human Resource Development offering a drainlaying course designed specifically for the Cook Islands. Septic tanks are being tested and regulated. The runoff from piggeries and farms is being monitored. The European Union has come to the table with cash in hand to help manage waste water, as has the New Zealand Agency for International Development, and its Australian counterpart.
How serious is this problem? Several Government branches are actually working together in an effort to prevent our pristine lagoons from turning into open sewers. There are national health problems to consider, as well as the devastating impact contaminated lagoons would have on tourism.
Let’s meet some of the people involved in returning those postcard-perfect lagoons to their former idyllic condition by regulating septic tanks and the proper disposal of the country’s waste water.

Tauriki Rongo
Senior Environment Officer
National Environment Service
Q: Are you concerned by the pollution in the lagoons?
A: Of course we are concerned about that. We are addressing the issue of seepage into the lagoon from the septic systems. If you look at the pilot project in Takitumu, this is what that whole project is looking at: setting up a septic system for the piggeries and things like that. If this system works, it can be replicated all around Rarotonga. (The cleanup) may not happen this next decade, it might be the decade after that but, hopefully, it will happen, it will get done to as close as we had it in the time of the mamas and papas.
Q: What is the condition of the septic tanks on the island?
A: We can’t deny that the old system, some have cracked and some need more processes in cleaning up the waste water. Public Health and our department, with a little bit of input from Marine Resources, have been working towards setting up standards for septic tanks, standards to suit our conditions. Old septic tanks have been closed down or forced to be fixed up to comply with standards. All we can do is set up the best we can.
Q: What can the public do to help in this effort?
A: Little things like recognizing seepage in septic systems. The whole thing is about awareness, about people appreciating our environment. People understanding that these things will ruin our environment and the lagoon. When people come to realize and accept that, instead of taking things for granted, only then will we move forward and get nature back.

Dr Rangi Fariu
Director of Community Hea lth Services
Ministry of Health
Q: What is the Ministry of Health’s role as far as monitoring septic tanks and sanitation?
A: We have a Sanitation and Sewage Act and we have the regulations that were passed in 2008. Our role is mainly to ensure that anyone who installs a septic tank, this practice is carried out properly. They submit their house plans, including where they are going to put their septic tank and the size of the septic tank and the number of people who are going to use it. All those things we need to monitor. Once we approve their plan, once they start the work, we visit the site, do an inspection, see how far the tank is from the nearest creek and ensure the tank is the appropriate tank for the number of people who are going to live in the house.
Q: Tell us about the MOH’s septic tank audit.
A: We have a project in place to audit 100 tanks in the rest of Rarotonga, and another 100 in the Muri area. That is probably going to start (in June). The contract has been signed and we have a local registered plumber and drainlayer who is going to do the auditing for us. People can choose whether they want us to audit their tanks or not. We just want to know the condition of those tanks. The old tanks are just one pit and what comes out of it is usually a lot of contamination.

Tai Nooapii
Ministry of Infrastructure and Planning
Q: Your ministry maintains the oxidation ponds at the Rarotonga Waste Facility. What, exactly, is an oxidation pool?
A: An oxidation pond is a pond designed for receiving sewage effluent from the septic tanks when they’re full. The whole island feeds into the system. A truck comes in and pumps out the septic tanks and brings the load up here.
Q: How does it work?
A: It’s two ponds, really. One is the primary pond, which receives the sewage from the septic tanks. That’s organic matter that breaks down quite easily. Algae control the whole pond and bacteria control the bottom of the pond, where they digest all the solids. These two work together to break down all the solids and other nutrients. From there, the water goes into the secondary pond, where further settlement and treatment takes place. From there, the water moves into the effluent pump chambers. It’s then pumped into the irrigation fields to be dripped-irrigated onto the land around the landfill, where further treatment takes place by bacteria within the top layers of soil.
Q: What happens to the sludge that builds up on the bottom of the first pond?
A: It’s pumped out. Usually, we would take it to the landfill and mix it with new refuse and then cover it with soil. But there are some people who want to use it as a fertilizer.
Q: Is this facility large enough to handle all the waste from the island as visitor numbers increase?
A: So far, we are managing with what we have.
Q: But is there a fear that if they build more houses and resorts that you won’t be able to handle the capacity?
A: There is a fair chance of that. We’d have to make another pond.
Q: What happened to all the septic tank waste before the ponds opened in 2005?
A: I really don’t know. Some was probably taken onto plantation land and spread out.

Jacqui Evans
Environment Consultant
Q: What is the present situation with the sewage regulations in the Cook Islands?
A: The sewage regulations are a huge improvement from what we had before, in terms of the standards required for installation of sewage systems, construction of septic tanks, for the level of treatment that effluent has to go through. The improvement that happened was to improve the level of treatment after the effluent comes out of the septic tank by installing either trenches or mounds.
Q: You’ve been working on the Cook Islands Marine Resources Institutional Strengthening Project to produce a Waste Management Initiative. What was the impetus behind this study?
A: There were a lot of concerns in the community about the quality of the water in our lagoons in terms of algae blooms and nutrient enrichment and that, if we don’t do something now, we may have major health problems in the future. We’ve learned a lot since that project was implemented, in terms of what’s required to reduce the input of nutrients into the lagoon by improving sewage treatment.
Q: What else have you learned from this project?
A: We learned that we really need some financial assistance to upgrade our septic systems to the point where we’re going to have long-term impacts. It’s going to be a requirement for the homeowner, the government and the aid agencies to come together to take responsibility to upgrade our septic systems.
Teariki Matenga
Designer
Waste Management Initiative
Q: How did this project start?
A: This is a project that started four years ago with an initiative by the Takitumu vaka council.
Q: You accessed funding from NZAID and AusAID to pay for monitoring of the lagoon over a period of four years after airborne bacteria caused irritation to the eyes and ears of people who ventured into the water. What were the results of that report?
A: The report that came through was inconclusive but recommended that we look into land-based activities (as the source of the bacteria). That’s where the project actually started: to look at our sewage system, the piggeries, the farmers, erosion. At the end of the day, with the monitoring results that have come through, it’s pretty much identified that it’s sewage that’s actually contaminating our lagoon over here.
Q: Were you able to pinpoint where that sewage originates?
A: Some of the problems that we’ve identified are septic tanks that were built over 20 or 30 years ago and are not proper contained tanks. Some of them have no bottom at all. So what they’re actually doing is discharging raw sewage into the lagoon through the groundwater. Those tanks need to be pulled out and replaced with certified tanks.
Q: NZAID has allocated $15 million for this project. Is that going to be enough?
A: No, it will never be enough. The problem keeps growing on a daily basis. We have new houses going up, we have hotels going up. The control in that area is not as strict as I’d like it to be in order to pull them back into a respected standard where the sewage is treated properly before it’s discharged.
Q: What’s the worst-case scenario if nothing is done?
A: The degradation of our lagoon is getting worse. We’re getting very close to tipping the scale to where we’re damaging our lagoon permanently. There are more days now in the year when people shouldn’t be swimming in our lagoon.
Q: Are there signs warning people about this?
A: No. There’s nothing at the moment. But I’m pretty sure if you go through congested areas on the beach, you can actually smell the sewage that’s coming out of the lagoon.

Peter Tierney
Development Programme Coordinator
NZAID
Q: What is New Zealand doing about the waste water situation in the Cook Islands?
A: We’ve been working since last year on what we’re calling the Waste Management Initiative. We’re using some research that’s been collected over the past three or four years by Marine Resources around water quality. The underlying drives pushing this ahead are the public health issues, relating to hygiene and improving that for individuals and for the general public. And also in terms of sustainability for tourism. We see improving waste management as key to sustainability.
Q: What is the condition of the water in the lagoons?
A: We found that the water quality is acceptable at the moment. But we’ve seen a trend that we need to reverse if we want to retain the pristine and ideal environment that we’ve been promoting as a tourist destination. And also for the general health of the population.
Q: What would be the end result if waste water management isn’t improved?
A: That’s hard to say. The difficulties with these types of issues are that they are very complex – there are a lot of factors. The hotels are, generally speaking, built on the coastline, situated very close to lagoons. It would be very easy to just blame the hotels for the problem but there are also piggeries, where the pigs are located very close to streams. (The effluent) is running straight into the streams and then into the lagoons. There is also an increase in the number of private homes on Rarotonga. All these extra pressures are creating more of a demand on the environment.

Tekao Herrmann
Technical Manager
EU Muri Water & Sanitation Project
Q: How did this project start?
A: It came about as a partnership between Government and the European Union. It’s a project primarily focussed on looking at ways of improving the quality of water in Muri Lagoon.
Q: Why now instead of five years ago? What finally triggered this project to launch now?
A: It’s been a steady build-up of what has been noticed about the quality of Muri Lagoon. It’s gradually built up to the state where people have realized that, if we don’t do something about what’s going into the lagoon, it’s all going to have an impact, not only on our daily lives but on our economy as well. It’s well overdue that we actually do a project of this nature.
Q: Is the ultimate goal to restore the lagoon to its former glory?
A: Absolutely. That’s the main goal of the project, to improve the current state of the lagoon. As we all know, this is a prime location for a number of our visitors. In terms of the economic benefits to the country, it’s a really important area for us to preserve. Not just for our benefit in this lifetime, but for future generations.
Q: What would happen if nothing was done?
A: The current state of the lagoon would continue to deteriorate. When I was a child, I used to swim here all the time. Now, I’d have second thoughts about swimming at Muri. But I think this project will help improve the quality of the lagoon.

Fiona Ramsey
Second Secretary
European Union Delegation for the Pacific
Q: What does the EU hope to achieve by being involved in this project?
A: What we’d like to see as an overall outcome is an improvement in the water quality in the lagoon and, hopefully, a change in the ecosystem that allows it to either be healthier for fish life and seafood, or for general marine life. So we’re looking for a water-quality indicator and we’re also looking for a social impact in terms of people’s awareness about sanitation and the importance of having good sanitation at a household level and at a larger community level.
Q: Are you impressed with the project’s progress to date?
A: I am impressed because they’ve reached out, it seems, to every single household within the Muri area. However, the data analysis is still ongoing and a lot of the technical solutions will only be able to be assessed properly once they finish their data analysis. We need to be very sure of what is the actual source of the pollution of the lagoon. Is it from the household level and, if so, is it from leaking septic tanks? Or is it from the commercial properties and their systems? So we have to be very careful where to emphasize the investment to have the greatest impact on the lagoon.
Q: How much money is the EU making available for this project?
A: What we have already agreed to is 2.55 million Euros (NZ $4.7 million) spread over 3-4 years of implementation. Our colleagues from the European Union Investment Bank, who we invited to join us, have other resources that we’d also like to tap into (so) we can also look at neighbouring areas where there may also be problems with lagoon quality.

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