Friday, March 29, 2024

Kaiaua flood provides lessons

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The risk of a perfect storm hitting again is inevitable, Waikato Rural Support Trust representative John Bubb says.
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While the effects on the hamlet’s businesses attracted much attention the surrounding low lying farmland also bore the storm’s brunt. 

About a dozen commercial farms on the 10km coastal strip between Kaiaua and the celebrated bird sanctuary at Miranda were contaminated by sea water.

Rural Support Trust and DairyNZ said eight dairy farms were inundated by sea water, two of them severely with over 80% coverage.

Now farmers and other landowners at Kaiaua will have to pay if they want any protection from future floods.

Waikato Regional Council’s Waihou councillor Stu Husband said the district has been problematic in the past when it came to delivering flood protection.

Unless locals were prepared to put their hands in their pockets and pay up that protection would remain compromised.

The Kaiaua area was ceded to Hauraki District Council in 2010 after the Auckland city amalgamation, having previously been part of Franklin District.

It had been subject to various efforts by that council to deliver flood protection but those efforts were thwarted by locals opposing the rates cost.

As a result it has not been afforded the level of protection neighbouring areas of the Hauraki Plains have as part of a well-established local and regional council owned and operated flood network.

Money was the main reason past proposals failed.

“But we had options as low as $50 a year added onto rates to provide a basic flood protection programme two to three years ago. It could be up to $200 a year but that is nothing really for peace of mind.”

However, the district had suffered an event that even a comprehensive flood system might have done little to protect against given it was a sea-borne incursion of water rather than an upstream flood.

“The farmers who are in that Kaiaua area have always done their own private drainage work, given their proximity to an outlet at the Firth of Thames. But there have been issues lately with outlets being blocked and it can be a case that you get what you pay for,” he said.

“They were lucky. Thankfully, they did not get the rainfall with it. If they had they would have been a lot worse.”

It was unreasonable to expect ratepayers from places as distant as Tokoroa to be paying for protection at Kaiaua.

Typically, farmers in Hauraki District covered by a flood protection scheme paid thousands for the privilege and urban ratepayers also wore a rates charge for protection.

The regional and Hauraki councils were working through options with locals on protection schemes and another attempt to offer viable solutions was expected to be tabled within several weeks.

“We will work through the options and hopefully the community will come on board.”

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