Friday, March 29, 2024

ECan prioritises flood infrastructure

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Canterbury’s farmers should not expect assistance from Environment Canterbury (ECan) for the recovery of their flood-ravaged farms.
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ECan river manager Leigh Griffiths says council is confident that its flood protection infrastructure did its job and that it could not accept allegations of mismanagement or responsibility.

“ECan has a mandate from council to maintain flood protection assets for properties that form a rating district, but does not have the mandate to remove rocks and gravel from any property,” Griffiths said.

Staff may work on private land where this assists in delivering to needs of the rating district, such as where the removal of debris, trees, gravels, forms part of work required to meet the wider flood protection objectives within the rating district.

Such work is typically limited in scope.

“If council wished to undertake or fund significant work outside the agreed work programme for a rating district, such as removal of gravel from private property, this would require a specific council decision and appropriation,” she said.

If requested by the community, council can look at more comprehensive mitigation options through potential new management schemes.

Griffiths says for the Ashburton River the event was over design, meaning it was much larger than the flood protection infrastructure was designed to contain.

“In this catchment out-of-river flows would have occurred irrespective of issues such as gravel aggradation,” she said.

Whether the flood-impacted farmers took a hit for the town is not yet determined.    

“It is likely the water spilling out in the upper reaches took some pressure off in the lower reaches, but we have not quantified that yet, as our current priority is physical works on the ground to protect the community from further flooding,” she said.

“Our current focus remains keeping water in the river and ensuring lifeline infrastructure such as roads can reopen.”

Temporary fixes to flood infrastructure are being made where possible to reduce the risk of recurrence until permanent repairs are possible.

“Some repairs can’t be done until the ground dries out, this might be closer to summer,” she said.

“In Ashburton in particular, the recovery will take many months, possibly years to complete.

“We have mapped the majority of the known damage and are responding on a priority basis, including risk to people, property and infrastructure.

“We are reprioritising our work on a daily basis based on these assessments.”

Griffiths says the recovery to the flood event will require ECan to adjust work programmes and budgets.

“Additional resources will be required to restore critical infrastructure, as well as deliver already agreed programmes of work,” she said.

“We need to analyse the full extent of the damage and develop an appropriate work plan so we can’t quantify a timeline or repair costs yet.”

ECan is also considering climate change and potentially modifying design solutions as part of recovery work, rather than simply reinstating infrastructure as it was.

“In some areas major erosion damage has occurred in the river berms and vast amounts of flood debris, including thousands of whole trees, are scattered through the rivers,” she said.

“For now, we’re still in response mode, trying to return water to and keep water in the rivers by pushing up temporary banks, using temporary fixes for stopbanks where possible and clearing debris.”

Griffiths acknowledged it is a vulnerable time.

“All of the work completed so far should be considered susceptible to future high-flow events,” she said.

“In particular, the whole of the Ashburton catchment is still extremely vulnerable and if we receive more heavy rain then we should expect to experience overflows at the same locations.”

Farmers say there are still many questions to be answered; their land damaged by the floodwaters is not insurable.

One farmer who asked ECan if the regional council had insurance to put the shingle covering his farm back in the riverbed was told the council is not insured for a natural disaster.

Another farmer who questioned ECan assistance for the farm’s recovery was told point blank “we have no money”.

“Some of us won’t recover from this damage and for the rest of us, it will take millions of dollars and months, if not years,” the farmer said.

Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers president David Clark says the problem is the shingle, not the amount of water.

“It’s a shingle event, all of this poses some big questions about how we manage these rivers,” Clark said.

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