Flood repairs could take years

As South Canterbury braces for more heavy rain event, an Environment Canterbury river engineer says last week’s flood damage could take years to repair and cost millions of dollars. .

Leigh Griffiths said the primary focus of works right now was ‘‘in-river’’ to control flows and reduce pressure on the sides of the river and nearby infrastructure.

Contractors were busy yesterday working to clear the river continuing the weekend’s work.

‘‘Long term, there are repairs needed to stopbanks and other erosion issues but it’s too wet right now to tackle those immediately. Long-term repairs, including the recovery of vegetated berm areas, will likely take months and possibly even years to complete,’’ Griffiths said.

‘‘At this stage the full costing is not clear. Initial emergency work will likely cost in the order of $500,000 but all long-term work that is required will be in the millions of dollars. It is anticipated these costs will be shared between local authorities and public utilities.’’

Griffiths said the ‘‘in-river’’ work will continue for at least the next month.

‘‘Hot spots will then be prioritised and work programmed over the next one to three years,’’ she said.

An ECan spokesman said the river flow, which peaked at 2300 cumecs on December 7, had dropped to just over 200 cumecs by yesterday.

MetService forecaster Andy Best said Canterbury and the West Coast were on heavy rain watch.

ECan South Canterbury councillor Dr Elizabeth McKenzie said events such as last week’s flooding would only become more common in the future, as climate change begins to bite.

‘‘This one was particularly bad, because we had three heavy rain events in a short space of time, but I don’t think this is going to be a one-off.’’

McKenzie said while the fact the previous council declaring a climate emergency was a good first step, ECan really needed to start budgeting for contingencies for events such as the Rangitata flooding.

‘‘We need to have discussions with central government about what they could do to assist us . . . it’s not something that’s going to go away, it’s only going to increase in its intensity,’’ she said.

Contractors are still working to repair the damage from the December 7 flooding which left thousands of travellers stranded either side of the river until an alternate route was opened via the Arundel Bridge on December 9. The Rangitata Bridge on State Highway 1 reopened to traffic on December 11.

The state of emergency for Timaru District was lifted on December 13.

However, Timaru District Council spokesman Stephen Doran has said the council and Civil Defence were keeping a close eye on the weather and river levels, and would be ready to reactivate a state of emergency if needed.

‘‘There are repairs needed to stopbanks and other erosion issues but it’s too wet right now to tackle those immediately.’’ Leigh Griffiths