Urgent move to stop floodwater entering former Franz Josef dump
From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Urgent moves were made to divert water away from the old Franz Josef rubbish dump after residents expressed concern the Waiho River could cut through as floodwaters started to rise.
Amidst the stormy weather on Wednesday, authorities were actively monitoring West Coast rivers in case of possible flooding but by Thursday morning the worst had passed without any significant issues in the region.
There had been some “significant” hourly rainfall totals on Wednesday, particularly in the Westland ranges, West Coast Emergency Management Group director Claire Brown said.
West Coast Regional Council staff were monitoring rivers, especially the Waiho, and on Wednesday engineering staff decided to act on temporary protection of a vulnerable floodwall between Canavans Knob and Rata Knoll, downstream of the township.
The bank protects the closed rubbish dump from the river and was the subject of a heated discussion between council engineering staff and Waiho Flat residents.
Waiho Flat farmer Richard Molloy said the risk on Wednesday was “extremely severe”, as the stopbank had already been compromised by a flood in April “and then left” by the council.
This week’s weather only exacerbated the risk as the river was the highest it had been for some time, with risk of the main channel turning towards the undermined protection bank, he said.
“We’ve got a real bad situation down here, they’ve done nothing with this bank. The risk is extremely severe.”
He claimed council staff at the site told landowners it was “too late” to do anything, but he believed a decent digger could do a lot, even at that late stage.
“Of course you can turn the river – it’s not the main body of the river, but a significant channel.”
It appears the council listened before releasing a press statement later in the day.
“Some short-term protection by a local contractor has been arranged for later this afternoon to ease some of the pressure in a localised area and provide assurance to the community,” acting chief executive Rachel Vaughan said on Wednesday.
“This is a temporary fix and long-term solutions for the Waiho continue to be investigated.”
Meanwhile, plans for flood protection work elsewhere on the West Coast are continuing to progress.
A $2.5 million project to lift the height of the existing Greymouth floodwalls will be under way towards the end of March.
The added height would allow the wall to cope with an even more extreme event than the big twin floods of 1988 that prompted construction of the floodwall
The West Coast Regional Council decided to upgrade much of the existing wall structure to a new 50-year flood level, with concrete work to be upgraded to a 150-year flood level.
Infrastructure project leader Scott Hoare said the project had been split into five stages.
Overall, the walls on both sides of the Grey River and in the suburbs of Cobden and Blaketown would be raised by up to half a metre in most places. They would also be widened by just over 1m to accommodate the extra height.
It had to go through design and budget before being tendered.
Addressing the weak point in the Hokitika River stopbank near Westland Milk Products will also be prioritised in the first stage of a proposed project to top up the flood defences from Kaniere to the river mouth.
Just before last month's local election, now retired Westland mayor Bruce Smith warned the weak point in the bank, just above the dairy factory, should be urgently addressed by the regional council to avoid “litigation flying”.
Smith also warned both councils would want to avoid being sued, as happened after the Waiho (Waiau) River overtopped the stopbank at Franz Josef in 2016 and flooded Scenic Circle's old THC Hotel.
Council infrastructure projects leader Scott Hoare said they were now reconsidering the order of the planned Hokitika protection works.
The council had to consider the “mobilisation and demobilisation” costs of engaging a contractor specifically for a temporary fix as opposed to getting on with the permanent improvement and keep to the budget, he said.
“It does add extra costs when you split it up.”
In Westport, a business case for a $56 million flood protection scheme has yet to be seen by Cabinet.
The town has just endured another storm watch in the past 24 hours – with residents again on tenterhooks, spurring “bloody panic”.
Snodgrass Rd resident Paul Reynolds said people were still struggling after the 2021 flood, which left a $100m trail of destruction in its wake.
“We can't get on with life because we've got a $100m threat every time we've got heavy rain,” Reynolds said.
Regional council chief executive Heather Mabin told councillors the Department of Internal Affairs had advised there had been a delay in getting the business case to Cabinet. The full proposal was submitted with the Government in June.
Associate Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty said the Westport case was “under active consideration”.
“Every time we get these flood events, as we have just had, there's bloody panic at Westport,” regional council chairperson Allan Birchfield said.
“Really, [the Government] need to get on with it. The people up there can't live like this – a constant state of emergency every time it rains.”
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Horse rider pleads for support to keep them safe on roads
A nationwide campaign to have horse-riders officially recognised as vulnerable road users has been offered supported by the West Coast’s Regional Transport committee.
The committee heard a presentation this month from equestrian safety advocate Julia McLean, who recently took a petition to Parliament on behalf of riding associations across the country.
The petition, signed by close to 9000 people, asks the government to recognise the vulnerability of horse riders in transport legislation.
“Currently we sit in the ‘other road user’ category and that gives no benefits whatsoever and most critically we are not included in education or road safety-messaging,” McLean said.
Horse-riders were continually dealing with reckless and dangerous behaviour by motorists, she told the committee.
“We get reports from our rider groups of horses being killed: there was one in Reefton, and another in Ruatoki; just two weeks ago a horse was hit and killed by a truck and the rider was taken to hospital."
Riders were also put at risk by aggressive drivers tooting their horns, winding down their windows and shouting, and passing at speed and too closely, she told the committee.
But unlike accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users, such incidents involving horses were not captured in the statistics.
When she had asked NZTA for data, said said all it could tell her was that it had issued 13 infringements in 13 years, for failing to take care around a ridden animal or stock.
“When someone comes so close they touch your stirrup, or they hoot their horn as they go past ... it’s the abuse - it’s everywhere."
In a case down south, a truck driver refused to slow down despite hand signals and the rider fell off just in front of him, she said.
She had asked the road safety director for NZ Police to look at providing a ‘tick-box’ for horse-riders in incident reports, Ms McLean said.
“It’s a small, low-cost measure that would allow us to have some proper data, an informed understanding of what’s happening out there on the roads, and in turn some targeted road safety messaging.”
She was motivated to become a safety advocate by her own experience at the age of 25, when she fractured her skull in a near-fatal riding accident on a Kaiapoi road.
“I lost all memory of my childhood; my sense of taste and smell is gone forever. I was in a coma for week, I lost my career and it’s taken me 16 years to fully recover,” she told LDR.
Her accident had not been caused by a car: her horse had shied and thrown her when a piece of paper on the verge moved suddenly in the wind.
But the incident was a grim reminder of what could happen if a horse were startled, she said.
The UK and Australia had recently changed their road codes to give drivers explicit instructions on passing horses.
“It needs to be explicit. We can’t assume people just get it anymore. Common sense is not a thing. We actually have to tell people what we require, to pass a horse wide and slow - wide is two metres.”
A total of 37 organisations were now endorsing her campaign, including police, trucking companies, pony clubs and 10 other regional councils, McLean told the committee.
Transport Committee chairperson Peter Ewen was supportive of Ms McLeans safety campaign.
“In rural New Zealand we have a lot of narrow roads, and we do have riders on them – I would like to think that courtesy is given to those riders."
Regional council chairperson Peter Haddock said he sympathised with the cause but had reservations about riders on state highways.
“I would encourage it on low volume council roads but would struggle to support riding on highways where you’ve got traffic following closely behind.
“It’s difficult to find you suddenly have a horse in front of you and slowly pass it and go from 100kphs to 10kphs. It’s a dangerous situation."
McLean said horse riders did not want to ride on highways, and accidents were happening on 50kph local roads.
She appealed to West Coast mayors and chairs present to consider horse riders when they built shared pathways like cycle trails.
“We don’t need a hard surface, just a bit of dirt or grass at the side.”
The Transport Committee agreed to draft a letter to the national transport authorities, endorsing McLean’s safety campaign but stating its reservations about horses on highways.
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