The Hutt River gets a health check everyday, monitoring for E.coli, toxic algae and nutrients. A person can survive three weeks without food, but only three days without water. With climate change a looming certainty, there will be nothing more crucial to our survival. But the source of our water is increasingly tainted. In the first of a series on the Wellington region’s waterways, Kate Green reports on the health of Hutt River. Māori wisdom likens a river to a taniwha’s tail. It whips side to side, changing its course on a whim, unpredictable – you don’t want to get too close.