$13m plan to prevent repeat of disaster

The Government is putting $5 million towards reducing the flood risk in the eastern Bay of Plenty after the 2004 Rangitaiki River flooding disaster that forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

The contribution will go towards a $13 million combined package between the Environment Bay of Plenty regional council and the Whakatane District Council for flood mitigation works around the river and Edgecumbe areas.

In July 2004, a 100m stretch of protective embankment - built in the 1970s to 100-year flow standards - broke just above Edgecumbe after three days of heavy rain in the town and in Whakatane and Opotiki. The area was also hit by a series of more than 100 earthquakes.

River water engulfed farmland, parts of the urban area and the Fonterra factory. Nearly 3000 people evacuated their homes and more than 200 houses were declared uninhabitable. The flood was the biggest since 1944.

After a 1987 earthquake - in which ground levels dropped more than 2m- the regional council checked the stopbanks and carried out remedial work to make sure they were still safe.

They were further strengthened after major floods in 1998 when stopbanks leaked water.

But after the 2004 disaster, the councils are not taking any more risks.

Work around the river - expected to start in October - will include adding control gates and widening existing ones.

Other work around Edgecumbe will include building a flood pump station, a new deflector bank, raising the existing Raids Floodway bank and establishing a new location where flood waters can be pumped during an emergency.

The Government's contribution will go towards work already completed in the Whakatane suburb of Awatapu, which included upgrading the existing pump station and building a new one.

Civil Defence Minister John Carter said yesterday the Government would provide $3.4 million to Environment BOP and $1.6 million to the district council. The shortfall will be met by ratepayers.

Environment BOP chairman John Cronin said the contribution, with other planned expenditure in the regional council's 10-year plan, would help ensure residents were better protected against the impacts of possible future flooding of the Rangitaiki River.

"We have been working on this request to central government for some time alongside [the district] council and are rapt that we can now get on with the works needed for a community that would not have been able to meet the full costs themselves."