Safety of Muriwai drains, infrastructure questioned after landslides

Poor design and maintenance of drains is the main reason behind the extent of damage caused by recent weather events, Muriwai residents on Auckland's west coast say.

In February, the combined impact of the Auckland Anniversary floods and the Cyclone Gabrielle brought down three major slips in the coastal community - including the slip on Motutara Road that killed firefighters Dave van Zwanenberg and Craig Stevens.

More than a hundred homes were red-stickered and deemed uninhabitable, and almost three months on, many residents remained displaced.

Motutara Road resident Mike Currie, whose home had been red stickered, said for years he had seen significant storm water coming down from the sandy hills and Oaia Road above.

He said the drainage infrastructure had not been properly maintained - particularly along Oaia Road, where drains were frequently blocked by pines falling from the pine trees on the hill.

Currie said the sandy feature of Muriwai land made the area vulnerable, and that it did not make sense that storm water systems in the area had not been upgraded for more than 50 years.

"Now we're facing the consequences of that poor design, and unfortunately those consequences are far reaching for peoples lives and peoples property," Currie said.

He was disappointed that even a major slip in 1965 on Domain Crescent that killed two people was not enough to trigger change - a location where council had consented for rebuilds.

Currie had been forced to rent in another part of Auckland since Cyclone Gabrielle, and said his insurance cap for accommodation support would run out later this year.

"I feel like a climate refugee one hundred percent... I'd hate to compare the comparison with Ukraine, but I literally feel like I'm in a war zone in my own backyard."

Currie said he would like to see the government and Auckland Council create a stormwater infrastructure for Muriwai which could keep people safe, and that he and a group of residents were prepared to take legal action if a resolution was not achieved.

Another local with a red-stickered home, Brent Ritchie, said Auckland Council had let residents down.

"I think they've failed in their duty to look after the stormwater system in Muriwai, and that it's been an absolute cop-out if they just said not our problem," Ritchie said

He had cleared the drains himself ahead of wet weather this week, to prevent further damage to his home, and he was worried about the future.

"If council don't upgrade their system, then in further storms that happen in the future there's going to be more damage to properties," he said.

Meanwhile, Auckland Council said Healthy Waters - responsible for maintaining drainage systems - was working with Auckland Transport to clear drains and catchpits.

But it said the volume of work was so large that they were still working their way through the blockages.

Healthy Waters' head of operations Andrew Skelton said he did not agree that the drains in Muriwai were under-maintained.

He said no stormwater network could have coped with the extreme weather earlier this year.

"I don't think January, February, was an infrastructure issue. It is an extreme event with overland flows more related to typography and saturation," he said.

However, Skelton admitted the only proactive maintenance of the network in Muriwai was the annual cleaning of the catchpits.

He said it was up to residents to tell Healthy Waters when drains were blocked and added that the agency would consider more frequent maintenance for higher risk areas such as Muriwai.