Wairoa mayor Craig Little says history shows that Wairoa has been impacted by flooding for as far back as records were kept. Photo: SUPPLIED
Authorities want to use the Wairoa showgrounds as a floodway to save the town from a disaster.
A plan has been devised to unleash the Wairoa River in periods of heavy rain through land near North Clyde, fixing a troublesome kink in the river that failed the suburb in Cyclone Bola and Gabrielle.
Two different pathways for the floodway are now being put to the community by a group given $70 million by the government to provide Wairoa with new flood mitigation.
The Wairoa Flood Protection Stakeholder Group's proposals would put Māori land, several homes, and the showgrounds in the direct path of potential floodway, likely requiring a red-zoning of the homes.
The town is still reeling from the devastating impacts of Gabrielle in February 2023 and again in June this year when the river broke its banks and flooded hundreds of homes and caused millions of dollars of damage.
Both options, in time, would move properties in North Clyde - which are effectively in limbo - from Category 2C into Category 1. This would give home owners more certainty and protect hundreds of hectares of whenua Māori and general title land.
After the cyclone, the government promised $70m to provide flood mitigation for the town.
Since then, work has been ongoing to find solutions to help protect it from future flood events, with the community now being asked for its feedback on two of the most technically viable flood mitigation solutions - Option 1C and 1D.
Option 1C will potentially impact 16 houses, 6 hectares of Māori whenua and 18ha of general title land. This option will also mean that 46ha of Māori whenua and 298ha of general title land will potentially be better protected from floods.
Option 1D involves six homes, 18.4ha of Māori whenua, 26.6ha general title land and potentially better protect 30ha of Māori whenua and 248ha general
title land.
Photo: SUPPLIED
Hawke's Bay former mayor Lawrence Yule was appointed Crown manager by the government in August.
He said the partners of the Wairoa Flood Protection Stakeholder Group - Wairoa District Council, Hawke's Bay Regional Council and Tātau Tātau o te Wairoa Trust - engaged with mana whenua, including whānau and property owners potentially impacted by Options 1C and 1D in early October.
"This important milestone came off the back of a long and careful process which included the Wairoa Flood Scheme Stakeholder Group - a group established by the Tripartite partners - working with river engineers, technical experts and mana whenua to come up with technically viable flood mitigation solutions to help protect the community of Wairoa," Yule said.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council chairperson Hinewai Ormsby said throughout this process, there had been a shared commitment to minimising impacts on the people of Wairoa, whenua and cultural taonga.
She said the reality was that every option considered so far "has impacted some individual properties and parcels of both whenua Māori and general title land".
"We have had to carefully balance the fact that some land and people will be impacted, against the need to find a technically viable flood mitigation solution to help ensure the safety of the Wairoa community."
Wairoa mayor Craig Little said the project is one of the most significant the town has seen in decades.
"History shows that Wairoa has been impacted by flooding for as far back as records were kept, and yet we have never had any type of flood protection in place.
"Now, through the government's $70m contribution, we have the opportunity to put solutions in place to help protect the community of Wairoa for generations to come. No decisions have been made yet and there is still a lot of work to be done, but we are making progress, and it is pleasing to see that this progress is now occurring at pace.
"We know there will never be a magic silver bullet to stop all flooding, but we absolutely have to do whatever we can to reduce the flood risk and help protect our community."
The options
Both Options 1C and 1D involve a floodway, which temporarily allows excess water to flow through it when river levels reach a certain height, for example, during very high flood events. In both options, that floodway is enclosed by small stopbanks on both sides.
- Option 1C involves a 170m wide and 2m deep floodway, enclosed by small stopbanks averaging 1.2m high;
- Option 1D involves a 250m wide floodway averaging 0.9m deep, enclosed by small stopbanks averaging between 1.5m and 2m high.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
