Health and safety policy proving difficult for hill country pole planters

A farmer works to plant poplar poles on an erosive hill. Photo/file

Contractors to carry out "critical" anti-erosion work in Wairarapa are thin on the ground as health and safety policies push workers into different industries.

Workers use quad bikes and other all-terrain vehicles to head out to remote parts of the eastern Wairarapa hill country, where they carry out "pole planting".

But a "comprehensive" policy developed by the Greater Wellington Regional Council to reduce the risk around the use of such vehicles is making it harder to get workers out to the sites, catchment management general manager Wayne O'Donnell said.

As a result, the council may need to start training its own staff to do the work, which is "extremely important" to reduce erosion and thereby improve water quality.

Pole planting involves ramming 3m poplar poles 700-800mm into the ground so the young stems can grow into trees, which will decrease erosion in "really unstable soils".

The poles are used instead of seedlings, and are generally made from poplar or willow.

O'Donnell said the work is "critical to retain the soils" and keep them from getting into the water in the lower catchments.

He said the council developed a new health and safety policy about two years ago, which looked at the risk around all-terrain vehicles. The new policy, which extends to contractors, said quad bike or ATV drivers could not take passengers.

O'Donnell said the change came after some "very significant near misses".

"What that did was put pressure on the contractor," he said.

Contractors had to purchase more vehicles or larger vehicles, as it was not efficient to have only one person per vehicle heading into the site.

Some were unable to afford the extra vehicles or did not think it was worth it to invest in them for the planting work, which could only be done in a short window of time during winter.

There were fewer contractors able to meet the requirements, and some were shifting to the forestry industry instead.

With 25,000-30,000 poles planted in the region each year, the council was struggling to find enough people to do the work.

Up until now, contractors have done the work while council staff supervise, but O'Donnell said the council may need to start training its staff to do the work themselves to achieve its targets.