Picton dam deemed safe after overflow scare

Most of the Picton residents evacuated today, amid fears a dam above the town could collapse, were allowed to return home tonight.

Engineers who inspected the alternative water supply dam tonight had deemed it safe, Marlborough District Council emergency services manager Ross Hamilton said.

"The dam is no longer overlapping and there is no danger of it rising again unless we get a lot of rain very quickly," he said.

Most of the 1000 people evacuated from houses sitting several kilometres under the dam had been told they could return.

However, residents from a few houses in four streets had to wait until their houses had been inspected after flooding in Picton sent water containing sewage into the area.

A state of emergency, put in place at 1.30pm today after the Barnes Dam began to cause concern, would be reviewed tomorrow morning, Mr Hamilton said.

The town was still experiencing problems with sewage contamination, after manholes overflowed and the Waitohi River flooded.

The Barnes Dam and the smaller Humphreys Dam contain more than 100,000 cubic metres of water as a back-up supply for Picton.

- NZPA