Farmer fed up with floods

Henry Harte in his paddock, where gravel has washed off Demeter Rd with a pond holding stormwater run-off in the background.

Western Bay small block farmer Henry Harte is very unhappy with stormwater run-off ruining his pastures.

Farming at the top end of No 3 Rd, Mr Harte, aged 82, has a beef with the Western Bay regional council's approach to road maintenance in general.

After two years on his otherwise idyllic spot, he is finding the run-off from Demeter Rd on two sides of his property is causing problems.

A deep rut along the edge of No 3 Rd where the road way is barely wider than Mr Harte's light truck.

Three ponds form on his property after any rainfall.

"How can it be fair that all this water can pour on to my place?" he asks.

He has found a culvert that diverts water from one side of Demeter Rd beneath the road surface on to his place. The least he wants is for someone from the council to sort out a proper sinkhole so the stones and silt don't end up on his pastures.

The council's transport operations manager, Alex Finn, said Mr Harte's problem is shared by many farmers and property owners in the Western Bay.

"Anywhere where road run-off is discharged on to lower land, council has every right to discharge to the natural water course. In fact Mr Harte has the right to discharge on to land lower than his," said Mr Finn. Generally, the council runs culverts across the road every 100m to drain excess stormwater, he said.

The general state of No 3 Rd beyond the end of the tarseal is also a worry to Mr Harte.
He produced a tape to measure the runnels on one side of the road. There is about a half a metre drop on a roadway barely 3m wide.

"Imagine meeting a truck on this road," he said. "If a driver pulled over to the left, they'd be stuck and need towing out. And they'd probably wreck their car."

With a kiwifruit orchardist putting in hectares of new cultivars, traffic on the narrow road will increase in years to come, Mr Harte predicts.

However, in the past week the increased heavy traffic along his section of roadway due to kiwifruit harvesting has compacted the road surface.

Mr Finn said the council's contractors, WestLink, have been flat out with emergency repairs in other parts of the district. He said it wasn't possible for them to be immediately on the job but a service request via the council's website would be attended to.