Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Stopbank meeting sparks river work
One of the Marlborough District Council’s highest priorities is the maintenance and improvement of the Wairau Plain flood protection network.
Encouraging the braided Wairau River to stay within its banks has been one of the biggest challenges facing Marlborough since the earliest days of European settlement.
The intricate network of stopbanks, flood gates and drainage channels, including the Diversion, constructed over the last 150 years have undoubtedly prevented major flooding on many occasions.
Council spends more than $6 million a year from a dedicated Wairau River budget, maintaining the flood protection network that protects Blenheim, Renwick, Grovetown, Tuamarina and Spring Creek. Most households on the Lower Wairau Plain including Blenheim contribute to a targeted rate each year which funds this programme.
In recent years Marlborough has experienced earthquakes and several heavy rain events that have probably accelerated the decline of some parts of our flood protection system.
Spring Creek’s Peninsula Rd stopbank is one that has been significantly impacted by these events. Although remedial works were carried out after the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, it’s now become clear the 100-year-old stopbank is showing signs of further deterioration, possibly as a result of the 2021 and 2022 flooding.
Plans to go out and talk to the Spring Creek community about the stopbank were accelerated by the recent close call rain event that nearly saw parts of the town evacuated. My thanks to the
80 community members who joined us at a public meeting last week at the community hall to discuss the protection upgrade options our Rivers team, led by Andy White, is proposing.
I understand the anxiety in the community about the stopbank and I know, for you, this work can’t start soon enough.
However, there are some important things we need to do first, including geotechnical investigation, confirming final design and finding the 35,000 tonnes of rock required to reconstruct the stopbank. That amount of rock is not immediately available in Marlborough, so we are looking elsewhere in the South Island.
It’s a big project that will take time to complete. It’s important we don’t rush in, we need to do our homework first. I want to reassure you that council is committed to fixing Spring Creek’s stopbanks. The $8.7m cost to rebuild is in our proposed long-term plan budget and we’re asking Government to chip in some funding too.
There were good questions from community members at last week’s meeting about whether we could bring forward some parts of the programme. In response, the team is accelerating work on the opposite side of the river, to ease pressure on the stopbank and berm as an interim measure; this is expected to start next week.
I understand there will be a level of uncertainty for Spring Creek residents until we can get the full works programme under way. My commitment to you is that we will rebuild your flood protection system as soon as possible.