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RNZ News
26 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Pensioners resorting to extreme power rationing to tackle costs
Some pensioners are resorting to extreme power rationing to keep up with rising costs. Turning off hot water cylinders for days at a time and heading to bed as soon as it's dark to save on electricity. Stats NZ figures show electricity costs have gone up almost 9% in the twelve months from June last year. Gas has gone up almost 15.5% over the same period. The government's winter energy payment for those on super and a number of other benefits is up to $700 over five months. But Age Concern Canterbury says it's not enough with an increasing number of people relying on super alone; there's only so many expenses they can trim. Chief Executive of Age Concern Canterbury, Greta Bond spoke to Lisa Owen. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
41 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Dog rescued after spending 24 hours trapped in drainpipe
Shiva has found poking her nose out of a manhole. Photo: Supplied / Chloe Sellers Shiva spent 24 hours stuck in the pipe, which was full of water following the severe flooding that had hit Nelson. Sixteen-year-old Chloe Seller was at her dad's work in Brightwater playing catch with her dog on Monday, when the tennis ball rolled into a drain. Seller told Checkpoint that Shiva went diving in after it and in a split second, things turned bad. "I screamed out saying 'she's got stuck in the drain!'. "My dad's co-worker... ran down there and I followed with her and was like, just kind of trying to get her and hoping that we'd find her." But the rapidly moving water made it difficult to reach Shiva, and left little room for her to breath. Seller said more and more people from her dad's work came together to try and find the dog, but were unsuccessful. "I was hysterical. I was crying. I was everything, like anything you could think of. I was freaking out." The longer Shiva was missing, the more of the community began to rally together. "Everyone came together and were looking, including just random strangers from the community were looking for her, which was amazing to know that there's people out there that will still do that." Shakira Keene (far left) and her sisters joined in the search for Shiva following an appeal from owner Chloe Sellers. Photo: Supplied / Chloe Sellers After securing blueprints from Tasman District Council that showed where the drains stretched to, Seller realised Shiva could have travelled between two and four kilometres from where she was sucked in. "It ends up going out the river and ends up all the way down to Rabbit Island. It goes very far." She decided to put a call out on social media for help in the search. "It blew up. It went nuts. Everyone was like, 'I hope you find your dog', just reacting to it, sharing it. There were thousands of views. I posted it everywhere possible. I was trying to find a way that we could get to her, I had phone calls from people, I had just everything." As the search reached the 24-hour mark, it was the online call out that brought good news. "A lovely girl, Shakira and her sisters went out and she goes, 'Look, we're finding this dog and we're not going home until we find her and help her.' Then I got the phone call saying that they found her." Shakira and her sisters discovered Shiva in a manhole, which Seller said she had searched in for more than half an hour. "She was just poking her nose out and they grabbed her." Seller said that while she had no idea how her pet had survived, she still seemed her "happy cheerful self", making it out virtually unscathed. "She's got a little gash on her face, and she had but a little bit of blood there. But other than that, she was good." Seller said she was "blown away", calling the whole ordeal "unbelievable". Shiva had spent most of her first day back home sleeping. Seller said while she had told the dog to stay away from tennis balls, she was not sure the message had sunk in, with Shiva going straight for the first ball she saw once back home. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Cost blowout renews call to scrap council's Akaroa wastewater plans
The current wastewater treatment plant at Akaroa. Photo: Supplied/Christchurch City Council A Banks Peninsula residents' group has renewed calls to scrap council plans for a wastewater plant in the Akaroa township, following a cost blowout of more than $70 million. Under the Christchurch City Council proposal , the existing sewage plant would be relocated and treated wastewater discharged onto farmland and native plants at Hammond Point and Robinson's Bay, instead of into the harbour. For more than 60 years, Akaroa's sewage has been treated and discharged into the sea at the bottom of the culturally significant Takapūneke Reserve. The new scheme was initially budgeted at $94 million, but that figure has ballooned to $167.3 million. The council was also exploring an alternative discharge option of sending treated wastewater directly into the ocean, instead of first irrigating it through land, but this would still cost $148.7 million. Friends of Banks Peninsula deputy chair Suky Thompson said the council's plan was flawed and she was not surprised the cost had blown out. "Our geotechnical engineer at the [resource consent] hearings recommended that much more geotechnical assessment was needed prior to putting this whole proposal up for a consent," she said. "Twenty million dollars of that blowout is to carry out more geotechnical work on the site proposed for the treatment plant, but we think it will still blow out further because much of the steep land which the council proposes to irrigate to saturation hasn't had any geotechnical assessment." Thompson said the proposal did not address Akaroa's leaky pipes. "Our concern is that the amount of wastewater going through the system is largely determined by the poor quality of these sewer pipes in Akaroa, so it's infiltrated by an enormous amount of stormwater. "That means that at times when it's the most wet, when the land is soggy, that's when there's also the most water running through the system so then it has to be stored in enormous storage tanks and the council is planning to irrigate right through winter keeping the land at saturated level which is not suitable for the steep, slip-prone slopes of Banks Peninsula. "In our view it's time for the council to start being more realistic about what it can afford for such a small place as Akaroa -there's less than 1000 sewer connections going into the system." Thompson said the money would be better used overhauling the town's sewerage network. She believed the alternative option of discharging treated wastewater into the ocean would be met with more approval in Akaroa. "It would be much less intrusive to develop, it would be much more resilient going forward, so it's about the detail it's about the treatment standard that would be put in." Photo: SUPPLIED The council said the ocean discharging option would see a 15-16km wastewater pipeline running on the Akaroa Harbour floor, and wastewater discharged one to two kilometres beyond the harbour heads. "The staff update showed operational costs of the ocean outfall would be approximately $380,000 per year, compared to $625,000 per year for land irrigation. Operational and construction risks were outlined, including challenges in identifying leaks and the limited options available for repairs. Staff also repeated their understanding that this option is repugnant to mana whenua. Council head of three waters Gavin Hutchison said even though work was underway on investigating alternatives, no recommendations on a preferred future option would be made until the government's law changes around mandatory wastewater standards for discharge to water, land and overflows were implemented and the views of mana whenua sought. "Having this information will help further inform potential future steps for the current application process. However, regardless of what the new standards permit, we still have a duty to consult under the Local Government Act and consider cultural and community impacts of any preferred option. "Once we have an understanding of the impacts of the new wastewater standards, and have done further work, we expect to be able to brief the elected council on a preferred option for the future scheme in early 2026." Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu declined RNZ's interview request. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
