RiverLink partners go it alone
The Frosted Phoenix is legendary among New Zealand bug experts. Last seen 65 years ago, the distinctive moth was feared to be extinct – until an unexpected discovery. reports.
A major Lower Hutt infrastructure project has suffered another setback, with two key partners withdrawing from the alliance running the $700 million project.
Plans for RiverLink include a new interchange on State Highway 2, shifting Melling rail station and upgraded flood protection.
On Thursday, the Greater Wellington and Hutt City councils both confirmed they were going it alone.
Over the past 12 months, RiverLink had appeared to stall as the price of the complex project increased.
The alliance running it, includes the Hutt City and regional councils, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi and contractors AECOM-Fletcher, as well as iwi partners.
It had become increasingly clear that Greater Wellington was frustrated by the ongoing delays and the lack of progress on the design.
Construction was supposed to begin late last year. Greater Wellington began working independently on the inner-city stopbanks in February, citing the need to safeguard the city from flooding.
Greater Wellington chairperson Daran Ponter said on Thursday that the council’s flood protection team was well equipped to oversee construction of the stopbanks.
However, estimates prepared by the alliance suggest the council may need to find additional funding. It has budgeted $295m and has $165m remaining in the budget.
Hutt-based Labour list MP Ginny Andersen
Ginny Andersen Hutt-based Labour list MP
“It raises concerns about the overall health of the project and whether it will proceed.”
said, given the lack of progress, she was not surprised the two councils wanted to progress the project independently. “It raises concerns about the overall health of the project and whether it will proceed.”
The alliance had been looking at ways to reduce the price, she said, and find agreement on which “pretty parts” could be removed from the design.
Mayor Campbell Barry said the Lower Hutt components of the project would now be overseen by a “specialist in-house team” set up in December to streamline infrastructure delivery across the city.
The alliance will continue to deliver the more complex integrated aspects of the programme, including the city pedestrian bridge from the new Melling station and relocating the station.
Barry said the project was important to the future of the city and the new set-up was the best way to make progress.
“A programme of this size has a lot of moving parts and it makes sense for some aspects to be overseen in-house to ensure greater affordability and oversight of this transformative project.”
Hutt City would continue to work with the other agencies to co-ordinate construction. “We will continue to work with our partners to provide a cohesive approach to the project and improve the resilience and liveability of our city.”
Hutt South MP and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop said he remained committed to the project and was “comfortable” with the approach being taken by the two councils. “The core alliance model remains in place for the most important and complicated parts of the project.”
Ros Connelly, chairperson of the regional Te Awa Kairangi subcommittee, said ratepayers would be better served by Greater Wellington working directly with contractors.
“Flood protection is a core council function. It was initially included in the alliance scope of work on the expectation that cost savings would be generated through innovation and synergies with other aspects of the project. This has not eventuated and, in fact, it has become more expensive.”
1840:
Early European settlers living in Petone are hit by a large flood from Te Awa Kairangi. Most choose to move to Wellington.
A massive flood kills nine settlers.
Civic leaders begin working on a plan to reduce the risk of the Hutt Valley being devastated by a large flood.
The Wellington Regional Council produces the Hutt River Floodplain Managements Plan, a 40-year plan to safeguard both Upper and Lower Hutt, with a budget of $78 million. Politicians note that the most vulnerable area is central Lower Hutt and a flood would cause $1b in damages.
Hutt City Council again begins looking for ways to reinvigorate its central city. That leads to a number of projects, including the $34m events centre and subsidising a hotel. It also leads to the realisation that the city has to be turned towards the river.
Civic leaders begin to realise that the work needed for flood protection is also a good opportunity to build a new bridge across the river. Over time, that becomes a plan for a Melling interchange and changes to the Melling Line.
RiverLink gets the green light. Although it includes a new bridge, it does not include an interchange at Melling. The cost of a new Melling bridge is estimated at $34m and relocating the station $23m. The budget for flood protection and urban design improvements (including a foot bridge and a river promenade) is $168m, with the biggest item $82m to buy properties.
The project is delayed by a year to allow the NZ Transport Agency to develop its business case for an interchange at Melling.
Resource consent lodged for the $700m project, which now includes the Melling Interchange. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2023 with the Melling Interchange section completed in 2027.
The council gets $98m from a government infrastructure fund. It is to be used to build new infrastructure as part of the urban redesign associated with RiverLink. It is estimated that it will result in 3500 new apartments.
Representatives from Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency signed an interim agreement with AECOM-Fletcher to build RiverLink. Work is scheduled to begin later that year.
Wellington commuters warned to expect 18 months of traffic “chaos” when construction of the interchange gets under way. Greater Wellington says it will be closing the Melling Line for up to 18 months, as it resites the Melling station
Mayor Campbell Barry expresses doubts that RiverLink can be built for $700m. He suggests $1.2 billion as a more realistic future.
New Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop confirms RiverLink is under significant financial pressure and needs to be “sliced and diced”.
With rumours swirling about its future, a senior project manager describes RiverLink as “not currently affordable”.
Hutt City and Greater Wellington councils withdraw from the alliance, saying they will instead use their in-house expertise.
RiverLink timeline
1858: 1991: 2001: 2010: 2010 to 2015: 2018: 2019: 2021: 2022: 2023 (May): 2023 (August): 2023 (September): 2024 (January): 2024 (January): 2024 (March):
On a warm, drizzly night in March, a Swedish birdwatching group ventured into a dark forest to find an elusive creature. After two weeks roaming the country looking at rare native birds, they arrived on Stewart Island/Rakiura, hoping to see a kiwi in its natural habitat. After dinner at the South Sea Hotel in Oban, where they were staying, tour leader Pav Johnsson had a thought.
He grabbed a UV light from his bag and dangled it over a couch on the second-floor balcony. It was perfect weather for moth-spotting.
Johnsson is a school teacher on the small island of Öland, but also a trained biologist with a passion for insects – particularly moths and butterflies. When the opportunity arises, he takes photos of critters and plants and uploads them to iNaturalist, a website for reporting biodiversity observations.
When the group returned to the hotel after midnight, they were exhausted but buoyant – they had seen kiwi. Before going to bed, Johnsson remembered the UV light on the balcony and saw moths fluttering around it.
He spotted a lone moth hiding beneath a chair on the balcony. It was “quite large and robust”, Johnsson recalled to Stuff, with dark streaks on its wings, framed with glittering silver. He took two quick photos on his phone camera and thought nothing more of it.
Upon returning to Sweden, he sorted through his photos trying to classify the wildlife he’d seen. The moth under the chair proved difficult; he couldn’t identify it, even with the help of an AI tool.
He uploaded the photo to iNaturalist, marking it as unknown. A user made a suggestion in the comments: Could this be a species some believed was extinct?
One of New Zealand’s pre-eminent moth experts, Dr Robert Hoare, received a phone call from a friend about the post. He left a comment. “No other living soul has seen this moth,” he wrote. Truly astonishing!”
That’s when it sank in for Johansson. He had accidentally made a major scientific discovery.
“My legs were almost shaking,” he said. “I did not realise that I had found the Holy Grail of New Zealand moths.”
The moth under the chair was a Titanomis sisyrota, better known as the Frosted Phoenix. Johnsson is the only living person known to have seen one, let alone captured it on camera.
It joins a short list of New Zealand species once thought extinct only to be rediscovered many decades later. In 2004, research students found a population of Canterbury knobbled weevils in Burkes Pass, 82 years after one was last seen.
The Takahē was rediscovered in 1948, having been presumed extinct 50 years earlier.
For New Zealand’s small community of moth experts, it is an unusual end to a decades long search. Rather than a professional entomologist finding it in the wilderness, a tourist stumbled across one on a hotel balcony.
“There are about four or five of us who have been here for at least 25 years looking for moths, with a strong awareness of Titanomis, and have never seen it,” Hoare told Stuff.
“Some people have been out thousands of times in various places... It really is incredible.”Hoare is a senior researcher at Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, and the de facto global expert on Titanomis. In a 2001 research paper for the Department of Conservation (DOC), he described it as “New Zealand’s most enigmatic moth” - a title earned for its extreme rarity and uncertain origin.
Only 10 specimens have been found, spanning Southland to Waikato. The last was in 1959, attached to a floodlight on a hydroelectric dam; a worker stored it in a tobacco tin. Te Papa holds another specimen.
Its recent rediscovery provides an important clue. The light Johnsson used was an LED that only became commercially available in recent years. Moths are typically attracted to UV light, but this device had several other wavelengths that might have attracted Titanomis.
“I think the most important factor is we probably haven't been using the right techniques to find it,” Hoare said.
In 2001, Hoare was hopeful Titanomis was still out there. He proposed a public awareness campaign, starting by giving it a compelling common name: The Frosted Phoenix.
“I came up with ‘phoenix’ because it burns into ashes and then rises again, and the moth has a slightly ash like appearance. But more in terms of its history, it keeps on disappearing and then, all of a sudden, it rises again,” he said.
“I never completely gave up hope.”
The rediscovery of Titanomis shows the potential of a growing source of knowledge: Citizen scientists.
New Zealand has few professional entomologists, who face the difficult task of finding small, elusive insects in a vast and diverse landscape. It means many insect species are chronically understudied.
That is changing with websites such as iNaturalist, where amateur nature fans can report their own sightings.
“What’s happened noticeably over the last few years is there have been a lot more people looking for moths, and all sorts of things have turned up,” Hoare said.
“Some things that I thought were really, really rare have turned out to be not incredibly rare. There's hope that we might get some more information, because there's so many more people out there.”
For one citizen scientist, the rediscovery of the Frosted Phoenix has been surreal.
Of all the outcomes of his birdwatching trip to New Zealand, Johnsson did not expect to accidentally make a sizeable contribution to entomology, and become the only living person known to have a seen the Frosted Phoenix.
“It is by far the most breathtaking, important, and greatest find I’ve ever made or will make in the future,” he said.
“It was pure luck, and I am just so humbled and grateful to be part of bringing this fascinating insect back from the dead, in a way.”