Field Trip with Andy Bruere

I went out on a field trip with Andy Bruere, an engineer with the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. Andy's children went to St Mary's and I had his son in my class for 2 years. Andy explained to me about a lot of the infrastructure around the Rotorua Lakes that he responsible for as an engineer, particularly to do with improving water quality. We went to the alum dosing plant which puts aluminium into the water at the Utuhina Stream and Puarenga Stream to remove excess phosphorus from the water of Lake Rotorua, phosphorus being partly responsible for poor water quality, including algal blooms in the lake. This intervention has been very successful. We also saw the Lake Rotoiti wall, which diverts Lake Rotorua water down the Kaituna River and has vastly improved the water quality in Lake Rotoiti. The photo is of Lake Tarawera, which is currently being monitored carefully and needs to be watched because so many other lakes flow into it either by way of streams or ground water and some of these lakes have poorer water quality themselves.