West Coast council gives green light for bridge protection work

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:

The green light has been given to a raft of projects around the West Coast, including bridge protection work.

In August, the West Coast Regional Council granted 12 non-notified resource consent applications.

This included plans by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to protect the State Highway 73 Otira River Bridge, west of the Otira Gorge.

The river will be temporarily diverted to build protection structures around the eastern bridge abutment and the central pier.

Down river, KiwiRail gained consents to undertake earthworks, remove gravel, and divert water courses on the Otira and Taramakau rivers, to maintain protection work for the Midland Railway, as far as Jacksons.

In Buller, NZTA gained consent to secure the lower Buller Gorge section of State Highway 6 near Westport, at Island Creek, to protect the eastern abutment of a bridge on the creek.

Also in the lower Buller Gorge, at White Cliffs, the agency will undertake protection work at Clearwater Creek, including installing a weir in the creek bed, underneath and downstream of the bridge.

Oceana Gold sought permission to discharge seepage and leachate mine water to a tributary of Progress Creek from a pond, part of the management system for the mothballed Globe Progress Mine, near Reefton.

Buller District Council gained consent to dispose solid waste in a landfill at Maruia, including leachate from a refuse landfill where it may enter water.

The regional council also granted five applications to change conditions on previously granted consents.

This included Westland Mineral Sands at Okari, Cape Foulwind, being allowed to do earthworks within 5m of a drain.

Others related to gravel extraction and an application to change a whitebait stand design on the Taramakau River.