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Pollen Panic

The Auckland Regional Water Board is fielding its traditional seasonal spate of mistaken pollution complaints about pollen.

"From [June] to Christmas we get a lot of people phoning us up because they've seen unusual rafts of yellow material floating on water and think they may have seen a sulphur spill," says water quality inspector Stan Augustowicz. "Nine times out of ten, it turns out to be pine pollen."

The light yellow pollen can be blown into extremely wide and thick patches on water surfaces, or heaps on the shore. It is not harmful to waterways or aquatic life.