Rebuilding the south side Waiho River Milton and Others stopbank

Rebuilding the south side Waiho River Milton and Others stopbank

Regional Councillors and staff met with the community on the south side of the Waiho River last week, following the severe weather event on 25-26 March 2019, which resulted in the partial destruction of the Milton and Others Stopbank.

As an outcome of this meeting, Council committed to investigating options available to the Lower Waiho Rating District. The options identified were:
- Rebuilding the stopbank along its current alignment;
- Rebuilding the stopbank but extending this to tie into Rata Knoll; and,
- Potential compensation or land buyout.

It has become clear through various discussions with officials and government since the meeting last week that the only practical option, at this stage, is to rebuild the stopbank. Immediately after the flood event Council had engineers on the ground and initiated short term temporary river works to divert flood water away as much as possible from the affected area. The temporary rock recovery and other work will be incorporated into the rebuild project.

The decision to rebuild the Milton and Others Stopbank was confirmed at the Regional Council meeting yesterday. Councillors supported the feedback provided by representatives of the Lower Waiho Rating District to not only rebuild the original stopbank, but to look to extend the works to tie into Rata Knoll to provide better protection to the properties into the future.

Council staff have been and will continue to work closely with the Lower Waiho Rating District on the final design, costs and timeframes to complete this work. The costs and timeframes of the rebuild will depend largely on how much rock can be recovered from the surrounding areas. The approximate rebuild time will be three months.

Council will be making a claim to the government and its own insurance to recover as much of the rebuild costs as possible on behalf of the community.

“The outcomes of this weather event have had a huge impact on our communities,” said Mike Meehan, Chief Executive of the West Coast Regional Council. “There will be considerable work ahead to resolve these issues and we are committed to working closely with our rating districts to see this through.”

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Media contact
Mike Meehan | Chief Executive | West Coast Regional Council | 021 289 8636