Rugged West Coast due to erosion, but people who live there want to stop it
by Cameron Slater on April 10, 2016 at 11:30am
Some people just have to whinge.
The king tide was beautiful yesterday morning as it lapped on the rocks outside my house. But on the West Coast, made rugged by erosion, storms, and tides, they are wanting to halt nature.
The king tide has passed uneventfully along Auckland's coast this morning, but it's bringing waves of anxiety to the West Coast.
Buller District Council's beach camp at Punakaiki is taking a battering.
Manager Craig Findlay said there was erosion all along the foreshore, and it would be the end of the weekend before the extent of the damage was clear.
He said waves were undercutting big trees at the southern end of the camp, and he expected some established trees would be lying in the sand by the end of the weekend.Mr Findlay said it would be devastating to lose large trees to the tidal battering, as they were irreplaceable.
Wave upon wave continues to batter a West Coast campground as this weekend's king tide pummels the foreshore. Read more »
Tagged: Punakaiki • tides • Weather • West Coast
Proud to be feral
by Cameron Slater on January 14, 2016 at 9:30am
Drunk, upset, and violent…nice way to greet tourists to the Feral West Coast…by proving that ferals live there.
A Runanga man yesterday admitted two charges of assault on French tourists in Greymouth in August 2014.
Dillon Tucker (28) had denied the charges, but changed his plea before a defended hearing was about to start in the Greymouth District Court yesterday.
Tucker decided to admit the offences after police downgraded one of the charges from assault with intent to injure, to common assault.
On August 24, 2014, Tucker approached two vehicles parked on Mawhera Quay and asked for a ride.
Police prosecutor Michelle Payne said Tucker was drunk, and when the tourists refused him a ride he became agitated. ? Read more »
Tagged: Dillon Tucker • ferals • Greymouth • runanga • West Coast
by Lux on March 7, 2015 at 12:00pm
Image Credit : WikiPedia/Balloon Bomb
The Deadly Japanese Weather Balloons of World War II
?Although it?s sometimes said there were no enemy-inflicted deaths on the US mainland during World War II, that?s not actually true. In fact, six civilians were killed in Oregon by a bomb that infiltrated the States by hitching a ride on a beefed-up weather balloon. This ?balloon bomb? was one of about 9,000 that were launched from Japan with the intentions of floating across the Pacific and wreaking havoc on the US.
Tagged: Aeronautics • Aviation • Balloon • Balloon Bomb • Barrage balloon • British Columbia • deadly device • Incendiary weapons • Japan • North America • Oregon • Photo of the Day • United States • West Coast • western North America • World War II
Sensible resource extraction
by Cameron Slater on December 31, 2014 at 8:30am
The major problem with resource extraction such as previous metals, fuel and wood is that the opponents such as Forest and Bird, the Green Taliban and often also Labour take a zero tolerance stance. ?That leaves no room for negotiation, and even in the event some initiative is quite sensible, they continue to try and sabotage any economic progress for the area and the country on the basis that the only outcome should be to leave everything just as it is.
I have a personal affinity with New Zealand's native forests, and don't like the idea of selective logging. ?The ecosystems of those areas aren't understood the the point where we can just start picking the eyes out of healthy forests and expect it to recover.
But nature sometimes gives a helping hand.
Helicopters have started salvaging some of the native timber blown over by Cyclone Ita on the West Coast in April.
The storm destroyed thousands of hectares of forest, and over the summer hundreds of valuable rimu logs are being recovered from bush land near Lake Brunner to be made into flooring and furniture.
Each log is worth about $5000, but once milled and processed they can be worth eight times that.
"It's strictly taking very small percentages of the highest-value timber out," says Jon Dronfield of New Zealand Sustainable Forest Products. "The economics of helicopter logging are pretty high. It's an expensive business but it works for a high-value timber like this."
While the logs have been expertly cut to size, there were no chainsaws involved in their felling; they were flattened by Cyclone Ita in April that blew over hundreds of thousands of trees, potentially 5 million tonnes of native timber.
Instead of letting it slowly rot on the forest floor, the Government pushed through new legislation allowing a tiny proportion of it, just 2 percent, to be extracted over the next five years.
Letting timber drop and rot away is part of the life cycle of the forest floor. ?The argument that all (usable) logs should be extracted is akin to starting a sequence of events where the forest will not recover from the windfall. ?In nature, logs don't get taken away.
But at 2%, it is clearly an acceptably low amount of timber to take out. ?Especially since they will only need to take the commercially viable logs, and the ones that would normally be turned into firewood and woodchip are left to be part of the life cycle.
Tagged: Green Taliban • National Party • Rimu • West Coast
by SB on November 4, 2014 at 6:30am
Have you heard of aggressive advertising?
One example is throwing a brick through someone's window with a note attached saying, Dave's Window repair ph 0800brokenglass
Apparently on the West Coast someone threw a hedgehog through a window. They didn't mention if a note was attached but if it was I wonder what it would say?
If you agree with me that's nice, but what I really want to achieve is to make you question the status quo, look between the lines and do your own research. Do not be a passive observer in this game we call life.
You can follow me on Gab.ai
To read my previous articles click on my name in blue.
Tagged: hedgehog • humour • West Coast
NZ's Silliest Local Government Spending, Ctd
by Cameron Slater on October 21, 2014 at 5:00pm
Thanks to all the readers who have sent in some truly silly local government spending.
The latest Silly Local Government Spending nomination is from the West Coast, where the West Coast Regional Council has invested $500,000 in a 1080 production facility.
How this is council core business is well beyond my comprehension.
The West Coast Regional Council has admitted a secret $500,000 investment in a pest control company and new factory which is looking to manufacture 1080 poison at Rolleston, near Christchurch.
The council released a statement this morning after being outed by the Greymouth Star.
Once the factory is operational, the regional council will be involved in 1080 from manufacturing to consenting and even the application of the poison through another council-owned company.
Company Office records show the Rolleston partnership with Pest Control Research NZ Ltd was formed in May 2013. It has only two shareholders — Christchurch man Malcolm Thomas with 51 per cent, and the West Coast Regional Council with 49 per cent.
One director is Randal Beal, who formerly managed the council's resource consent stand-alone company, VCS.
Tagged: 1080 • Andrew Robb • Chris Ingle • Greymouth • Malcolm Thomas • Pest Control Research NZ Ltd • poison • Randal Beal • West Coast • West Coast Regional Council
Is The Press fair and balanced?
by Cameron Slater on September 4, 2014 at 9:30am
From The Press today, letters to the editor.
Tagged: Christchurch • Grey District • Greymouth • media • The Press • West Coast
by SB on August 15, 2014 at 6:30am
UPDATE: from David Farrar
I?ve either been hacked or spied on
August 15th, 2014 at 7:40 am by David Farrar
I started reading more fully the Nicky Hager book yesterday, and the footnotes in the book. To my shock I?realised that Hager had info in the book that could not have come from the hacking of Cameron Slater, but could only have come from my computer, my apartment or my?office.
Specifically he refers to copies of two scripts used by my company, Curia Research, this year. There is absolutely no way they could have come from Cameron Slater?s computer systems, as Cameron doesn?t have them. No one has them but me and my office.
Today's face of the day is the hacker who hacked us and stole personal correspondence to pass on to Nicky Hagar.
Was he paid to do the job? Was it really as Hagar claims motivated by the Feral post or is that just a smoke screen for the real reason?
I don't believe it was those angry people from the West Coast. They showed their anger by issuing death threats against Cam and gang rape threats against our daughter. They started a HATE Facebook page and attacked via social media.
A Hacker attack suggests another motivation entirely in my opinion.It is no co- incidence that the website was attacked too.
Who would want to silence Cam the most do you think?
Tagged: Anger • hacker • hacking • Hagar • Nicky Hagar • Social Media • the Feral post • West Coast
Why would a union donate to a party who wants to see their members unemployed?
by Cameron Slater on July 20, 2014 at 8:30am
David Farrar blogs about the EPMU donating to the Green party and how members are upset by it.
The Greymouth evening Star?reports?that West Coast miners who are EPMU members are furious at the EPMU for donating $15,000 to the Greens, when they want the mining industry in NZ to die out. Over a dozen miners have complained.
You can imagine how galling it would be to have your union donate a portion of your salary to a party that wants to close down the industry you work in, and effectively put you out of a job.
Tagged: David Farrar • EPMU • Green Party • Greymouth • Kiwiblog • Labour party • Politics • West Coast
Five years for ratbag feral killer driver
by Cameron Slater on July 12, 2014 at 3:30pm
I was sentenced to die by the mob and my daughter to be pack raped by the ferals on the?West Coast for daring to use the word feral. They proved my point with their "outrage" and subsequent behaviour.
There was no outrage from?the?left about that or about "a rape culture" existing on the West Coast.
Instead they said I deserved death threats and my daughter by virtue of being my daughter deserved what she go too.
No all the fuss was because I called a bunch of ferals driving around the streets and fleeing police in Runanga feral ratbags.
Well the one drunk feral ratbag who actually cause the mayhem and death has been sentenced, but not so you would know it in the mainstream media who published endless articles about the outrage of the ferals for being called feral.
A Kumara man who caused the death of Runanga man Judd Hall, 26, by driving drunk while fleeing from police at high speed was sentenced to five years in prison at the Greymouth District Court this afternoon. ? Read more »
Tagged: drunk driving • Feral • Jordan Nathaniel McGrath • Judd Hall • Kori Jeffcoat • Mark Zarifeh • West Coast
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