Bill for Bay floods estimated at $10.5 million

Repairs from recent Bay of Plenty flood events are likely to cost more than $10 million, according to figures released today by Bay of Plenty Regional Council.
The council's operations, monitoring and regulation committee yesterday heard that the combined August, December and January flood events are estimated to have caused $10.5 million in damage.
Following the August 2010 floods, the council approved using cash reserves to fix flooding damage. By the end of last year, $1.1 million had already been spent on repairs.
Further storms in late December and floods in January created more damage and worsened existing damage in areas where repairs had not been finished.
The council's current best estimate to repair all remaining flood damage is $9.4 million, in addition to the $1.1 million already spent, bringing the total cost since August 2010 to $10.5 million.
Committee chairman Malcolm Whitaker said it was important to note that since flood reserves have been used, an increase in the contribution to flood reserves will be requested as part of the Draft Annual Plan and next year's Ten Year Plan process. The Draft Annual Plan is open for submissions this week.
"These estimated costs mean that river schemes will need to look carefully at how they will continue to be sustainable," Mr Whitaker said. "Now is the time for council and scheme ratepayers to join together and take a serious look at the value the schemes provide and how much ratepayers are prepared to keep paying to repair damage.
"We also need to look at the methods we use to carry out these repairs to ensure we are using the most technically and economically sound methods."
Meetings have been set up to discuss flood damage with river scheme liaison groups during March and April.
Possible funding options for repairs including indicative rates if all the damage is repaired over the next year. Possible deferment of planned capital works will be discussed with scheme liaison groups and brought back to council during the annual plan consultation period.