Te Kopi dismayed by untrue fly-tipping connection

Facts: Te Kopi on the south coast is a small family-owned settlement of 17 mostly baches with just  three permanent residents. The others are weekenders, holiday-makers and, in one case, an Australia-based annual visitor.

Kaumatua/trustee Ross Ward, a descendent of the original Maori family owners, is kaitiaki of the Te Kopi enclave, inherited from great grandfather Hemi Te Miha and in turn from grandmother Katie Isabella Ahipene.  

The Issue: South Wairarapa District Council named the fly-tipping rubbish dumping area five kilometers from the village as “Te Kopi Cliffs.” 

Locals insist:

1. the coastal village has no connection to the Department of Conservation land where massive piles of rubbish have been dumped illegally, despoiling the landscape and waters of the Hurupi River;

2. no such “cliffs” adorn the 1,700 acres of the Te Kopi block/enclave;

3. residents keep the enclave “spic and span,” and no rubbish loiters there;

4. the only fly-tipping near Te Kopi _ when someone dumped a Ute on their beach _ was immediately removed by locals and trucked to a Wairarapa scrap dealer;

5. as The Star spoke to Ross Ward, another resident wielded a rake to scrape up loose leaves and cabbage fronds from the roadside berm. It added to the “no rubbish in Te Kopi” picture;

6. “there is no such thing as Te Kopi Cliffs … its Hurupi on the conservation (DoC) land.”

With that background, Ross Ward said the little community “found it quite distressing” to have it suggested the large piles of fly-tipped rubbish five kilometres away was somehow linked to the township.

“The article in the newspaper where ‘Te Kopi’ was mentioned  (The Star August edition, P1)  has quite affected myself and upset the batch owners, as has the name ‘Te Kopi Cliffs’ – which we have never heard of before. 

“It is a little bit distressing. It’s not Te Kopi up where they have dumped the rubbish.

“We’re pretty hot about it (the rubbish), but we just felt that Te Kopi has been wrongly accused if it. “We were just a bit saddened that Te Kopi got black-listed. We are people who look after the land, and don’t want rubbish dumped around. 

“We love the place, and love looking after it as do my brothers and sisters and so do the batch-owners. There’s no way they would dump rubbish where it has been dumped,” off Hurupi Hill, which was Dept of Conservation land, down into the Hurupi River.

“The rubbish … there is certainly a ‘no-no’ and we’ve even offered to help clean it up,” but the council was “a bit anti and wanted to blame someone.”

He said the tip site is nowhere near the settlement “not on our land, but quite a way away, a good four or five kilometers.”

He explained access to the fly-tipping site was created when a pine forest was established on the hill top, with the track used by illegal dumpers having been created for forestry access.  

Ward said the council needs to “educate” the community that most waste, like metal, building products, household appliances, and other materials are free at the Transfer Station.  

Ward said behind Te Kopi settlement the land was slowly regenerating native bush in and around the invading gorse, after  previously being leased out as grazing land.

And, as if to add insult to injury, the Council’s rates bill for Te Kopi this year has virtually doubled.

“That’s a big blow,” Ward said.

Caption: Ross Ward at the concrete block barricade now cutting fly-tippers’ access to Hurupi Cliffs. The “blue sky sliver” (top of frame) marks the forest access drive-way.