Urgent work should start within the month to fix two weak points in Westport's flood defences at a cost of $2.6 million.
Flooding in Westport in 2021. Photo: Supplied/NZ Defence Force
At an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday night the West Coast Regional Council quickly adopted staff recommendations to start the work and to cover the cost in the meantime.
It will use its catastrophe fund of nearly $1 million and borrow for the rest in order to cover the cost of retrospective maintenance on rock defence and river training on the south-eastern fringe of Westport, on the true right bank near O'Conor Home, and about 1km away at Organs Island, in the Buller River.
Both were badly scoured during the big floods last July and are now viewed as key to plugging the pressing vulnerability in the town's current defences.
A rock-training wall will be rebuilt at Organs Island, part of a historic flood 'overflow' from the Buller River to the Orowaiti River. The badly scoured stopbank adjacent to O'Conor Home will be rebuilt and extended.
Council chief executive Heather Mabin said the work was within existing permitted activities and did not require consent.
She had been advised by engineering staff that the work could be under way within three weeks.
Since March the council had made approaches to three government agencies to try to find a funding solution for the work, the Department of Internals Affairs, NEMA and MBIE.
With the business case for the wider $10.2m protection scheme for Westport in the final preparation before going to the government "there was no appetite to shift any money" to the retrospective maintenance work at this late stage, Mabin said.
"We have to include this in the business case and hope that central government funds will come through ... however there is no guarantee.
"In the long run I think it's the business case as the only avenue for sourcing central government funding."
The estimated cost of the O'Conor Home erosion scouring to 260m of stopbank was $923,351, and repairs to the Organs Island bank was put at $1,701,762.
That represented a budgeted spend of $2.6m not budgeted in the 2022 financial year.
The council decided in March to proceed with the first stage of the recommended $10.2m flood protection scheme by starting on two stopbanks above and below the Buller Bridge at the
entrance to Westport.
However, further investigation by the Westport Technical Advisory Group (TAG) into the repair work had concluded this was more urgent.
Westport flood protection business case consultant John Hutchings said the previously approved stage one work was now on hold pending further technical work but should be ready to go soon.
Site investigations in the past month had clearly found the repair work should proceed with "some urgency".
"There is a very strong sense that this work must commence. The core issue is yes, we agree it is a priority."
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