Karioitahi's car graveyard: Mired in sand in bureaucracy

Friday, 9 February 2018

Abandoned cars strewn around Karioitahi Beach's northern end are no different to any other rubbish and need to be taken away, say locals.

Northern Karioitahi Beach is an illegal car graveyard that has locals and two councils passing the buck.

At the base of the Awhitu Peninsula, an hour southwest of Auckland, the wrecks ranged from shards of rusted chassis to an upside down station wagon.

The wrecks pose danger to beachgoers and their animals; a horse that tripped on one almost-buried car had to be euthanised at the scene.

It's an area popular with fishermen, paragliders, surfers, motorcyclists and horse riders.

Years ago, a racehorse galloped over one of the buried wrecks, broke its leg, and had to be euthanised; its trainer's wife, Deanne Atkins, said the beach hadn't changed since then.

Locals believe the vehicles have either been stolen, then dumped after a joy ride, or left stranded by the rising tide.

The boundary between Auckland Region and the Waikato is smack bang in the middle of Karioitahi Beach.

* Note to self: don't park your car on the beach when the tide is coming in

* Storm exposes two decades' worth of rubbish on Greymouth coast**

As years worth of tides have washed over the wrecks, they've become submerged in sand.

Local resident Paul Smith first saw the cars while out photographing the rugged beach, which has the Auckland-Waikato regional divide squarely in its middle.

He said there were at least eight cars within a 600 metre stretch of sand around 2km north of the Karioitahi Rd carpark. Some were semi-submerged in the sand and looked like they'd been there for years, others could have been dumped within the last six months.

Some of the wrecks have been stranded so long they're barely more than a rusted chassis.

'Initially I found them kind of beautiful — good subjects to shoot — but when you sit back and think about it, they're really polluting the beach,' he said.

'They're no different to any other rubbish and need to be taken away.'

Their rusting metal lets toxic chemical leak onto the beach and into the sea.

Sustainable Coastlines' general manager Camden Howitt said the wrecks were a health hazard for humans and wildlife.

'They're rusting away, and sharp bits of buried metal won't be visible to beachgoers until they get cut,' he said.

Decaying cars also leached toxic fuel, oils and grease into the marine environment, poisoning birds and fish.

The wrecks were believed to have either been stolen then dumped after a thief's joy ride, or left stranded by the rising tide.

Pukekohe based salvager Craig Mills said their remote location and sand-logging made getting rid of them a Herculean task.

Tides washing through the wrecks 'filled up every cavity, nook, and cranny with sand', which could quadruple one's weight — requiring heavy duty haulage gear, many hours, and thousands of dollars to move, he said.

Locals have accused the authorities of turning a blind eye to Karioitahi's forsaken cars while the authorities are blaming the locals of not reporting them in the first place.

Acting senior sergeant Dean Borrell for Franklin Communities said he believed it was Waikato Council's job to organise the cars' removal. But a spokesman for the Waikato Regional Council insisted they were, however, in Auckland's jurisdiction.

An Auckland Council spokesman has since acknowledged the beach was in Auckland.

He said as the wrecks appeared to be below the high waterline, they were the domain of Auckland Transport's harbour master.

Auckland Transport also initially denied the cars were in the Auckland region and said it only dealt with stranded vehicles posing navigational hazards to boaties.

Auckland Council's general manager for waste solutions, Ian Stupple, eventually clarified that cars dumped above the low tide mark on Auckland beaches such as northern Karioitahi were indeed a matter for his council.

But Stupple said he hadn't had any calls reporting the vehicles.

'However, as we are now aware of the issue we will be liaising with police and investigating the removal of the cars,' he said.

He said police would establish whether the vehicles had been stolen or involved in a crime, then the council would try tracking their owners before launching a salvage mission.

* To report a car dumped on a beach, contact the local council. For Karioitahi, this is Auckland Council (09 301 0101) to the north of the carpark and Waikato District Council (0800 492 452) to its south.