New Zealand Engineering 1997 September

Letters To The Editor

Letters to the editor can be sent to:

Letters,

New Zealand Engineering

Freepost 3938

PO Box 12-241, Wellington

or emailed to Peter@ipenz.org.nz

Letters should be wise, witty and brief. The editor reserves the right to seek replies, edit and not publish letters.

Burn away!

Your correspondent Peter A Toynbee ( NZE July 1997) is to be congratulated for his lucid rebuttal of June's feature article regarding the need for carbon taxes and the so called man-made "greenhouse effect".

Of further interest in this field is the news that examination of ice core data from various polar sites shows that attempts to reinforce the cataclysmic Greenpeace version of global warming is not supported by scientific analysis. Instead, the data seems to suggest the onset of periodic cooling.

Congratulations too, to Lindsay Mayo for the observation that the recycling of paper is environmentally unfriendly. His alternative though, that "all waste paper should be buried" is wide of the mark. Such disposal by landfill is by far the least attractive option as the recently passed Local Government Amendment Act testifies. Your correspondent should study the proposal by Olivine NZ Ltd, to establish a high-tech incinerator at Meremere. Such a plant is common in Europe where landfills are quite properly seen as environmentally irresponsible.

Mike Houlding

Waitangi View

"Maori Claim to Intellectual Property Rights": ( NZE June 1997) brings me to query the stance our Institution displays on such matters. Mr Morris Te W Love, as director of the Waitangi Tribunal, suggests to your readers that our members should toe the line on this new invention called political correctness.

He featured in Ipenz's "Maori Issues and Engineering" August 1990 writing for an introductory presenter to a session at the 1990 conference, at that time styling himself as Manager of the Natural Resources Unit of the Ministry of Maori Affairs. Our minds boggled alongside the diatribe "Maori issues and water _ going into the future with a clear view of the past".

In the June 1994 issue, that time styled as principal of Raukura Consultants of Wellington, New Zealand Engineering then published his article "Who Pays Iwi Authority?", reminding our members of the grind many of them have to face when confronted with the likes of the Resource Management Act, iwi lack of resources (government funding?), and the supposed "principles" of the Treaty of Waitangi. That pseudo-edict, ostensibly and wrongly, claims a Government decreed adherence to there being a "partnership" in a "bicultural" society.

All that is absolute nonsense. Our Institution is being demeaned. And so is the mana of the Maori people.

The Treaty of Waitangi, urgently sought after by all parties at the time, 1840, can only be weighed in the balance by lengthy study of what was in the minds of all parties, and brought it about in the decade before. Not the century and a half of twisted invective which has followed. We should give thought to what would have happened had there not been the pact now called the Treaty.

Institution members now are getting bogged down with notions about a spiritual significance of river water needed for public water supply, scientifically unfounded perspectives to do with sewage disposal and this nebulous thing called "Intellectual Property Rights". Quite contrary to the intent and wording of said Treaty, it has pervaded the fields of deep sea fishing, mining and representation in Parliament. It lays claim to an appreciation of environmental concerns transcending what one of our parent Institutions immortalised by royal charter in 1828.. "The general advancement of Mechanical Science… promoting the acquisition of that species of knowledge which constitutes the profession of a Civil Engineer being the art of directing the great sources of power in Nature for the use and convenience of Man."

I urge our Institution to stand up against the cult being imposed upon us, to hold for integrity and what is good for everyone.

HC (Harold) Williams, Gisborne

President's View

Recently, as President of IPENZ, I have had the privilege of attending two very successful Branch meetings on future energy issues. I have reported separately on these two meetings in this issue of New Zealand Engineering .

I would like to congratulate John Rogers, Chair of Nelson/Marlborough Branch, and Geoff Ward, Chair of the Taranaki Branch, on the initiatives which they and their branch committees have made.

I have since received a letter from John Rogers suggesting that Ipenz form a task force to consider actions which should be taken in anticipation of the Maui gas field running out around the year 2006. I agree with John Rogers that this is an issue on which the engineering profession can show leadership if we are of a mind to do so and prepared to devote the necessary resources, time and expertise to ensure that our arguments and advocacy have credibility.

I will be asking the Ipenz Board to consider this matter, and the views of Ipenz members will also be welcome, either by contacting me personally or through the correspondence pages of New Zealand Engineering .

John Blakeley , Ipenz President

Ethics, Judgement, Cost

As a member of the Institution and a pilot, I feel I must express my disappointment with the comments from your editorial in the August issue of New Zealand Engineering.

With regard to the United Aviation accident, no report has yet been released by either TAIC or CAA. If the editor is aware of factual information which has not been publicly released I, and most of the aviation industry, would be interested to see it. In most industries it is common practice not to publicly speculate or comment on the cause of an accident until the official investigation is complete and the report published. While it is true that United Aviation has been grounded and the engineering licences of the maintenance controller and chief engineer revoked, there is no indication that this caused the crash which is currently being investigated. This grounding is as a result of a CAA audit, these audits seem (in my opinion) to be triggered after a fatal accident.

As to the AN703 accident, according to New Zealand Aviation News (whose August issue has an interesting summary of the accident report) the accident report identified a number of causal issues. One of these was that De Havilland of Canada had published a optional Service Bulletin to modify the undercarriage assembly to solve the problem of undercarriage 'hangups'. Ansett management decided not to implement this modification.

The Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (LAME) who maintain the company's aircraft follow the company's maintenance schedule. I would recommend that any members wanting a brief understanding of the accident report read the article in New Zealand Aviation News .

I would like to point out that the engineers being discussed are not M.IPENZ (although some may be eligible for TM.IPENZ) but are LAME. That is they hold a licence issued by CAA which allows them to be employed by the holder of an appropriate CAA document to undertake work on aircraft. Furthermore, the aviation industry in New Zealand is very small and generally people work in the industry for the love of aviation. While it is laudable to speak up at the risk to one's livelihood, without sufficient facts to ensure resolution of the issue favourably to oneself, one will rapidly find oneself looking for another career outside aviation after speaking out.

Chris Cameron, Wellington

"Get out of your car and into your life"

Re: New Zealand Engineering May 1997

I wish to register my concern that a photograph published with the above article should depict two persons using bicycles without crash helmets. The elder person is not setting a good example. Regardless of the fact that they may be riding in the backyard, this is not the image that should be promoted. Only a minor point but worth mentioning particularly as New Zealand Police began a "Lids and Lights" cycling campaign in Wanganui in May.

Rob Timpany, Wanganui

Clarifications and Corrections

The credit for stressing and grouting work on the Sky Tower, featured in last month's Sky Tower feature, was in fact incorrect. The work was carried out by Construction Techniques Ltd of Pakuranga, Auckland, not VSL Prestressing as attributed.