 The pollution control team consists of nine urban and three rural pollution control officers dedicated to looking after Auckland’s waterways. The team’s mission is to protect the Aucklandregion’s environment through both the proactive and reactive programmes they run.
The role of the pollution control officers as educators is becoming more and more important. For this reason, they have developed a number of proactive programmes that enable them to move towards the prevention is better than cure role.
Their proactive programmes include:
- The Industrial Pollution Prevention Programme – where all companies within a known ‘problem’ industry are checked, and any problems fixed.
- Area Blitzes – they check every company in an area for problems and leave educational material
Through these programmes they try to identify actual and potential pollution problems and then work with the owner and staff to reduce the impact of their activities on the environment.
They also operate the Water Pollution Hotline (09 377 3107) which is a 24 hour, 7 day a week public service to take reports and complaints about stormwater and natural water pollution. They respond to approximately 1000 legitimate cases of pollution per year. They answer calls day and night from concerned Auckland residents about water pollution. You don’t have to be an expert to detect water pollution – all you need to use are your eyes, your nose and your commonsense. The pollution control team want to hear from you if you see a stream or beach that smells funny, is a strange colour or has foam floating on top.
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