Councillor says ‘we have all f….d up’ in protecting the Waikato River

Wednesday, 11 February 2026

Waikato Regional Council staff were out on Lake Maraetai at Mangakino last week as locals, and an elected official, struggle to come to terms with toxic algal blooms on the Waikato River.

Mangakino’s sole elected official says agencies tasked to protect the Waikato River from algal blooms need to admit “we have all f****d up” and save the river before “it turns into something from the third world”.

Taupō District Council Mangakino-Pouākani Ward councillor Hope Woodward said her home town, and other towns along the Waikato River, were slowly dying, along with the river itself, and is appealing to everyone involved to do better - including herself.

Last week, the Waikato Times reported on concerns about the river’s state after multiple algal blooms had seen warnings posted at all of the river’s hydro lakes this summer.

Taupō District Council Mangakino-Pouākani Ward councillor Hope Woodward says the Waikato River is in danger of turning into a ‘third world swamp’.

Locals say visitors were leaving Lake Maraetai at Mangakino in droves, businesses were suffering, residents were selling up, and calls for action were falling on deaf ears.

Woodward said she had not swum in Lake Maraetai for at least two years, and her dog had almost died after drinking some of its polluted water.

She said she was angry and frustrated by the lack of action to preserve and restore the river by multiple authorities tasked to do just that.

An algal bloom in Lake Maraetai at Mangakino seen here in early January. Locals say the blooms are getting worse every year.

“We are losing what is so special to us here … our situation is getting so bad - for our locals, and for our visitors.

“They'll just go somewhere else, and that's exactly what we've had, particularly this summer with people saying explicitly ‘we are not going to Mango (Mangakino) because the lake is terrible’.

“We need long-term and short-term action plans right now, and this is what I am almost screaming at Waikato Regional Council, and to be honest, Taupō District Council as well.”

An algal bloom in Lake Ōhākurī on the Waikato River, pictured here on February 5.

She said algal blooms were health and wellbeing issues, and the district council could do a much better job advocating for their residents and ratepayers.

“What they seem to feel is that given it's water it's a regional [council] problem, not ours.

“But we have all f….d up. We have polluted [the river] for years and years and years.

Seren Wilson, right, took her son Issac to the Arohena Campground at the southern end of Lake Arapuni last week only to find “no swim” warnings in place before packing up and leaving.

“We have used the wrong pesticides, the wrong fertilisers, the wrong chemicals on the water to control weed, all of those things.

“It has only been take, take, take, and now we've gotten to the point where the water's dying.

“We've got these big entities who are just sitting there going, ‘oh well, maybe we can do some more monitoring, and maybe we can put some more cameras in over there’, but that’s not helping.

Algae in a settled corner of Lake Whakamaru. All of the Waikato River’s hydro lakes have had toxic algae warnings at some stage this summer.

“We just need one entity to stand up and say, ‘we've messed up, but we are prepared to fix it’, and then the rest will follow.”

“To me, water is alive, and to be destroying an ecosystem so blatantly with no regard whatsoever blows my mind.”

She said Mercury’s use of diquot to kill hornwort further upstream was adding to the problem.

“It basically rots, and turns into more nutrients to feed the algal blooms, and the algal bloom is feeding the weed - it's just a crazy, stupid cycle.”

Mercury’s generation chief operating officer Kevin Taylor said the company was aware of the algal blooms, and was meeting its resource consent conditions, “which are designed to protect the awa”.

He said Mercury did not believe increasing the river’s flow, or flushing the river, would disperse algal blooms, and after using diquat to kill lakeweed for 17 years, said blooms didn’t always appear after its use.

“Diquat is effective in areas where we have applied it, but it requires an annual application to ensure the weed does not overwhelm the lakes where it's found.”

Taylor said minimum flow levels needed to operate the Waikato hydro lakes were adhered to, and the volume of water flowing through the hydro system was dependent upon electricity demand.

“We often hear the theory that increasing water flows will flush algae bloom downstream.

“We know that blue‑green algae occur naturally in rivers and lakes, and prefer slow‑moving or still water, so it is often found near the edges of rivers and lakes rather than in faster‑flowing areas.

“This means it is less likely to move easily from one lake to another even with increased water flows.”

He said algal blooms have not interfered with electricity production.