Council bid to divert Wanganui River

Photo: Supplied / West Coast Regional Council

The West Coast Regional Council has applied for retrospective consents to divert the Wanganui River and extract gravel to fix 250 metres of the northern stopbank that was washed away in successive floods in February and March.

The area, known as Percy's Bank, about 7 kilometres downstream from the State Highway 6 bridge, was first washed out in early February and then contentiously left unrepaired by the council for more than six weeks.

Subsequent floods on March 9 and 20 saw the river take a direct path through two farms, including that of regional councillor and Wanganui Rating District spokesman for 25 years, Andy Campbell.

The retrospective consent application for emergency works on the council's behalf has been lodged by consultant Davis Ogilvie.

It covers the river diversion and gravel extraction within the riverbed needed to reconstruct 250m of stopbank. That was completed last month. Consent for the stopbank itself is not applied for as it was previously consented.

Council acting infrastructure manager Colin Munn said the repair on behalf of the rating district had been expedited "under emergency works".

The council was required by law to lodge a 'retrospective' consent application within 20 working days of the repair work.

"It wasn't for the repair itself but to extract material and to divert the river. We didn't need a consent to do the repair."

Munn said he believed gaining the retrospective consents would be relatively straightforward.

The application noted approximately 100m of stopbank was washed out on February 4 and 5. The subsequent March 8 and 9 flood increased the gap to 250m. Design work and consultation was under way with the rating district at the time.

The Greymouth Star understands the repair cost escalated from what was initially estimated to be about $80,000 from the first flood, to more than $250,000 due to the subsequent floods washing away more of the stopbank.

A heated meeting of the Wanganui Rating District just 48 hours before the March flood expressed displeasure at the delay by council in repairing the bank following the Waitangi Weekend flood.

Then, on 20 March, a further flood swept through just as council contractors moved to start the bank repair.

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