The Onehunga Lagoon, at the reserve between Beachcroft Avenue and the motorway. Photo: RNZ / Maia Ingoe
An Auckland community say they are stuck in the mud, with years of silt making their lagoon unusable, and they are pushing for it to be restored.
More than 1700 people have signed a petition to get the Onehunga Lagoon dredged, but authorities are not ready to shoulder the cost.
The Onehunga bay and foreshore - which was once a thriving waterfront area - was cut off from the growing community when State Highway 20 was built in the 1970s.
Stephen Lasham is a leader of the Aotea Sea Scouts, who are housed in a building on the edge of the Manukau Harbour, beside the Onehunga on-ramp to the motorway.
He said the lagoon at the Onehunga Bay Reserve was a kind of compensation for the community when it opened in 1984.
The Sea Scouts use the reserve to train younger recruits.
"Keas and cubs are not allowed on open water, so the lagoon is the safe water that they can learn on. We have three optimus boats over there, we have three kayaks, and we've even sailed a cutter on the lagoon in the past," Lasham said.
That is no longer possible - the boats get stuck in the sludge.
The silt has built up in the lagoon from years of neglect and damage from Cyclone Gabrielle, meaning groups like the Aotea Sea Scouts now find it unusable.
"The flooding that occurred during cyclone gabrielle actually took the water level of the lagoon a metre higher than it's ever been in the past. It was a metre up the side of the toilet block in the lagoon carpark, it flooded across Beachcroft Avenue, and actually flooding across the motorway."
• Stephen Lasham, outside the Aotea Sea Scouts building, where they've been since the 1970s. Photo: RNZ / Maia Ingoe
He said there had been nothing to maintain the lagoon since it opened, and cyclone damage to the tidal gates was still causing problems for the lagoon's tide levels.
"We had our 2023 summer season ruined because every time we went down there, there was insufficient water locked in, as we'd been given assurances it would be."
The scouts have been pushing for something to be done for years, talking to the council and other groups, as the silt has continued to build up.
"The silt has to go. There's also a lot of Pacific oyster shells now have got into the mud. We only ever let kids boat on the lagoon if they're wearing suitable footwear, but the mud will suck the shoe off and one of the kids came out of that mud run with a nasty lacerated foot because Pacific oysters are like razor blades."
Onehunga Enhancement Society chair Jim Jackson said dredging the lagoon was a simple solution, as long as there was a plan for what to do with the stuff that came out.
He said dredging the lagoon could be a win-win, by using the silt as a building material - sometimes known as mud-crete - to support reclaimed areas around the foreshore and combat erosion.
It was not an unfamiliar tactic in Auckland's port areas, Jackson said.
"No reason why we can't do it in Onehunga and start to tidy up the highly compromised foreshore. If you go between the sea scouts building and the cruising club there, it's an absolute disgrace. It's got demolition concrete, all just tossed into the harbour."
"The bottom line is that we should be looking at tidying up the [Manukau] Cruising Club building, and also around the Onehunga Port. Very simple solutions, the next thing will be getting the funding for it."
The Onehunga Lagoon, at the reserve between Beachcroft Avenue and the motorway. Photo: RNZ / Maia Ingoe
When he campaigned to be the MP for the Maungakiekie last year, National MP Greg Fleming promised to take on the cause to get the lagoon dredged.
A petition he started has gathered more than 1700 signatures.
"For the first few years, it was by all accounts a great asset, where families would come and interact with that water the same way they used to, with the sea and the beach," he said.
"But over time, it has degraded - there's never been any servicing of that lagoon, then over the last five years, particularly with the cyclone, the level of sludge that has accumulated at the bottom of the lagoon has made it completely unusable."
Fleming said now he was looking at where to get the money to dredge it - while it's still being quoted, he said it could be as much as $1.5 million.
"Been working now with everything from the local board, to the council, so starting conversations with New Zealand transport - because it's going to have to be a multi-agency approach towards getting it dredged."
In a statement, Auckland Council operations manager Marcel Morgan said there were no plans to dredge the lagoon, but the council had been working on improving the tidal gates.
"When the gates were out of action for a while, things like oysters grew on them naturally. This made the general wear and tear on the seal at the bottom of one of the gates worse. We also have a tricky gate system that needs to be programmed on-site, and it takes a fair amount of manual work to time the lifting and closing to create a good seal," he said.
"Since then, we've adjusted the gates to keep as much tidal water in as possible during their evening activities. Even better, we're beginning the install of a new fully automated system in early December.
"To sort out that worn seal, we've agreed with the Cubs and Sea Scouts that a contractor will remove the gates after their last evening on the water on 10 December. They'll be put back in at the end of January, all ready for when the Cubs and Sea Scouts come back and for a summer of fun at the lagoon."
Lasham said that for the Sea Scouts, it was just about returning the lagoon to its former glory so more kids could get out on the water.
"Getting kids out in boats, away from playstation devices and things like that, is great. To see kids really enjoying being out on the water - that's our goal as a sea scout group."
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