Doubts over new water authority responding to post-flood stormwater issues

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from Northern Outlook

From local democracy reporter Adam Burns:

There are concerns from the Waimakariri District Council about a “local response” to increasing weather events once the management of Three Waters is handed over.

An increase of flood and extreme weather events has hit the council’s resources hard in recent times due to the subsequent impact on local water infrastructure.

But there are suggestions response times to issues will leave the community even more exposed, after management of local infrastructure is absorbed by one of the four regional water entities as part of the Three Waters reforms.

At last week’s council meeting, councillor Niki Mealings asked what impact the reforms could have for a prompt response to post-event problems, following ongoing issues with roading and stormwater due to the floods.

Council senior engineering advisor Don Young told Mealings it was a matter of concern regarding the impending reforms.

“If rural drainage does go over to the entities, that’s going to be a significant interface issue.”

He said greater clarity was required regarding who would have delegations for both rural and urban networks.

An asset management operations and stormwater working group had been set up by the Government to investigate these issues, Young said.

“It's hugely challenging and complex.”

Councillor Philip Redmond also expressed doubts over how nimble a new authority would be responding to stormwater issues stemming from future events.

“Although I think we’re moving slowly, I think it would be even slower under a new regime,” he said.

“A local response is very important.”

There was an acknowledgement from some elected representatives of rain events and flooding becoming more commonplace due to the impact of climate change.

The council's roading team is currently stretched thin and admits it's struggling to contend with the volume of service requests.

During February's flood event, the unsealed roads around the foothills suffered scour, washouts and gravel loss.

Rainfall events and wind storms over the past 12 months have resulted in a surge of service requests for council’s roading team.

More than 5500 service requests were recorded in the 2021 calendar year, more than double what was reported in the previous year.

“Currently resources are struggling to keep up with the current volume of service requests and to manage the backlog.

“As such, extra resource will be required to continue to manage the higher demand and provide timely responses to our community.”

More than 900 service requests throughout the district were recorded between January and March.

A programme of repairs has been developed and is being delivered to address these roads.

A total of $730,000 of unbudgeted costs were approved by the council last week to fund ongoing recovery from the February flood event.

The bulk of these costs are to replace a culvert on Butchers Rd, which failed during the February 12 floods.

*Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air