Long Term Management of Pest Aquatic Weed in Manukau City

This case study involves management of amenity ponds in Manukau City. Most are man made for the purpose of enhancing aesthetic appeal of Parks but there are also several  that act as storm water  settlement ponds. There are thirty four ponds in nine catchment areas.

The author was responsible  for initiating the program when he was  park operations manager. It involved working with a large number of stakeholders and obtaining permission from the NZ Department of Conservation. It took two years before the preferred option of using Chinese grass carp came to fruition with the first release in November 2003 into two ponds Hayman Park and ? . At time of writing fish had been released into  15 of the 25 catchment ponds in the original proposal.  Trial work is on going relating to the use of Silver Carp for blue/green alae control.