The highest recorded rainfall events since July have brought with them a price tag of over $2.8 million for roading and almost another half a million on damage to reserves in the Whakatāne district.
Whakatāne District Council has already had to spend an unplanned $650,000 on remediation of damage to reserves and roads due to an unusually wet winter and spring and has now approved a further $760,000 for further remediation this financial year.
A combined report to the council by the its reserves and infrastructure teams last week also proposed an increased budget for storm damage in future annual and long-term planning.
The report stated that winter this year had been the wettest on record and though Standardised Precipitation Index records had not yet been published for spring, it was expected to follow a similar pattern.
The high rainfall and unusually high sea conditions had led to erosion of the Maraetotara Reserve in Ōhope. Remediation works costing $100,000 were already under way.
The slip on the Ngā Tapuwae o Toi walkway in October, which has resulted in the section of the track between West End and Ōtarawairere Bay being closed, is expected to cost up to $200,000 to reinstate.
A section of retaining wall on the southern side of Sullivan Lake has also subsided. This will be reinstated during the summer months and is expected to cost $100,000.
Managing road closures and detours, removal of slips and fallen trees blocking roads, attending floods, constructing and securing temporary access around underslips and washouts, minor works to secure against ongoing damage and unblocking culverts and catch pits have resulted in total operational costs of $1.33 million in the district. Of this, $840,000 is funded by Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency but the remaining $490,000 in costs would fall to the council.
Ngā Tapuwae o Toi walkway, Ōhope. Photo / Whakatāne District Council
Work remains to be done on reinstating roads that had suffered underslips, one on Galatea Road, two on Stanley Road and two on Herepuru Road which still remains closed to through traffic. The total cost of this work is expected to be $1.475 million,
Of this, Waka Kotahi would pay $1.07 million. The cost was divided into $845,000 for this financial year, of which Waka Kotahi would pay $670,000, and a further $630,000 for the next financial year of which Waka Kotahi would pay $400,000.
The council’s current budget for storm damage is $300,000. Chief financial officer Gary Connolly said the costs would result in a shortfall in the council’s capital funding.
“If we still want to do that capital expenditure [as planned] we now need to loan fund for that.”
He said budgeting for weather events like this in long-term planning would be “a point of conversation across all councils at the moment”.
“Not all of them, but a lot of them, are experiencing exactly the same thing and some of them at magnitudes significantly higher than this paper represents.”
Chief executive Steph O’Sullivan said some of the strategy questions that might come up as a result of long-term plan conversations were around the changing environment we are facing.
“Is our road-building at a standard that is going to withstand this? Culvert sizes, where we put walkways and how we build them - those are things that we are going to have to think about as part of a resilience strategy going forward. What is our insurance market going to meet and not meet in future?
“All councils, to some degree, are facing this, and some of us are facing it more than others.”
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