Why wasn’t Buller River dredged?
A former Westport harbourmaster has been warning about the risk of a major flood of the Buller River for years, but says he was treated like a ‘‘silly old fart’’ and ignored.
David Barnes, who held the role from 1995 to 2005, has been calling for regular river dredging since the practice was halted in
2016.
Regular dredging by Buller District Council, which stopped after the Holcim cement plant closed, would have made the floods that hit the town at the weekend less severe, he believed.
‘‘There needs to be adequate capacity for the river flowing into the harbour to get out.
‘‘If you have a metre of stones in the harbour, and I would expect there is, that is a lot of water you are shutting out and it has got to go somewhere. [Dredging] would have helped considerably.’’
But Barnes said his pleas to the council to continue dredging were ignored. ‘‘They weren’t interested, and I am a silly old fart and what do I know?’’
His Westport home was flooded at the weekend and he was cleaning up the mess yesterday.
Regular dredging would cost about $500,000 a year, but it was a small price to pay compared to the expense of a cleanup after major flooding, Barnes said.
The council put its dredging boat on the market in 2017, but then withdrew it from sale in May last year.
The dredge was used to remove 150,000 tonnes of gravel from the river annually during his time as harbourmaster, Barnes said.
A working group called Westport 2100 was established in
2019 to advise the West Coast Regional Council and Buller District Council on natural hazards. It recommended a raft of measures to mitigate flood risks around the Buller River, including long-term flood defences, a review of dredging and detailed evacuation plans.
Working group chairman Chris Coll said he hoped the recent floods would accelerate plans for flood protection measures, but declined to comment further.
‘‘It is pretty sensitive at the moment because there are about 5000 experts in Westport. They all have an idea about what should have been done and what might be done in the future.’’
Last year he warned the Buller River was a major threat and action was needed urgently.
‘‘The river is our main worry in terms of what it can do. It’s a sleeping giant. It’s a monster when it gets going,’’ he told The Press.
Buller mayor Jamie Cleine said nothing would have stopped the flooding at the weekend because of the volume of water heading down the Buller River.
It reached a level of 12.6 metres at about 3pm on Saturday. The level at the same time a week before was 2.4m.
‘‘[Dredging] is no longer a factor when you are talking about a flood of that magnitude.
‘‘It is a complex thing. There is no- one thing that would have stopped the water at this scale.’’
Many of the recommendations from the working group had been implemented, Cleine said.
‘‘The evacuation plan was in draft form and was utilised in this event. I am happy that some of the things in the Buller council’s control had been acted on.’’
Dredging of the harbour had resumed recently thanks to $2 million in funding from the Government’s Provincial Growth Fund
‘‘We began dredging in the last two to three weeks, but there was more to do.’’