Flooded roads hold up efforts to plug breach

By ELIZABETH BINNING

Flooded roads and muddy paddocks are hindering efforts to repair a 100m gap in a stopbank which is allowing huge quantities of river water to pour into the already saturated Rangitaiki Plains.

The breach, about 1.5km upstream from Edgecumbe and on the eastern bank of the Rangitaiki River, occurred on Sunday, forcing the evacuation of dozens of residents.

It is estimated that more than half of the Rangitaiki Plains, which cover 27,000ha, is flooded.

The breached stopbank, which could be leaking up to a quarter of the river's total flow, is doing little to help.

Environment Bay of Plenty spokesman Bruce Fraser said flooded roads have made access to the breach near impossible so the water has just kept eating away at the sides of the stopbank.

The breach is now 100m wide and would be best fixed once water levels have dropped.

"It won't matter how much that river drops, the water is going to keep coming out that hole and that's what's making the flooding on the Rangitaiki Plains worse," said Mr Fraser.

"Not only are they [farmers] coping with all the rainwater. They are having to cope with all the rainwater which is coming out of that breach."

Plans are under way to try to address the access issue, especially along Hydro Rd which leads to the breach.

"What we are looking to do now is dump a whole lot of rotten rock that would enable us to put trucks over it to get to that breach in the stopbank so that we can then start to do some work."

Mr Fraser said two possible options are being considered for plugging the breach, once engineers can access it.

The options include dumping large rocks into the gap or creating a temporary stopbank further out from the breach.

Mr Fraser said engineers had made controlled cuts further downstream, near Thornton, to allow floodwater from the paddocks to flow back into the river.

They are also working on a small section of the stopbank which started to seep on the western side of the Rangitaiki River which is still about 4m above its normal flow level.

On Monday, Trustpower reduced the flow of water spilling out of its swollen Matahina Dam, which is upstream of the beach, to allow maintenance work out on the stopbank.

The dam reached maximum capacity level on Sunday and Trustpower was forced to start spilling 740 cubic metres of water per second (cumecs) downstream.

Trustpower spokesman Graeme Purches said the spill was yesterday down to about about 330 cumecs and would be reduced as river levels continued to drop.