Flood: long-term economic effects forecast
TDC Mayor Richard Kempthorne addresses around 56 Aorere farmers and other residents at the Federated Farmers-organised meeting in Rockville last Tuesday. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
As damage assessment and the cleanup began, reports from residents, farmers and visitors began to illustrate the extent of the damage, likely long-term effects, and the frustrations of getting the help that was, and is, still needed.
Graham and Jenny Pomeroy lost 25 hectares of standing hay, all their water troughs and fences off 40 hectares of river flat, plus a large chunk of native bush. Perhaps worst for them long term was the loss of the James Road bridge, in the only road access to their farm. They are having to cross the river in kayaks, and hoped that a meeting with TDC engineers this week would give them the promise of at least a temporary footbridge until another vehicle bridge is built.
“It’s all still sinking in,” says Graham. “Anything big we’ll have to get flown in for a while. Even getting in a bag of dog biscuits or a bag of flour is a major in a kayak. Because we lost so much grass and hay, we’ll have to get rid of at least 100 cattle soon, which will mean reopening an old ford we can drag a stock crate across with a digger when the river gets low again. We’re just coping with the day-to-day logistics at the moment.”
All down the valley, rock protection installed over decades just disappeared, along with fences, water troughs and laneways. At Rockville, damage to buildings occurred as the river changed its course through several large properties, taking out both approaches to Dalls Creek Bridge in the process.
Cr Noel Riley pointed out there would be ongoing economic issues and financial hardship for those worst affected. Many are struggling to source building and fencing materials because suppliers are closed over the holiday period. Many lost the little stock feed they had saved (during the spring drought) for the approximately 20,000 head of stock in the Aorere Valley, and are facing the reality of buying feed, which is in scarce supply everywhere in the country.
“There will be expensive bills coming in and although some aspects may be covered by insurance there are a number of farmers still sorting out what was insured and some farmers may have to raise their mortgage,” said Mr Riley. “Some of the damage I have seen cannot be repaired in just a few weeks or months, but will be an ongoing issue for the next generations. There was a lot of good land lost to start with. On one farm they lost a fifth of their land, and how do you replace that? And how do you pay for your mortgage with less land in production? It is causing farmers a lot of stress.”
At Bencarri Farm Park, home of the famous eels, Leith Dixon said they felt “blessed to live in this community” as so many neighbours had turned up with wheelbarrows and food to help in the aftermath. The Anatoki gushed through the park during their busiest time of the year, leaving a trail of debris and sediment. Although they had a foot of water through the restaurant and all their freezers, the Dixons were optimistic that they would be reopening within days.
However, four days after the flood, they were still waiting to see the insurance assessors, which had “kept their hands tied” to some extent.
“We have our staff out here helping with the clean-up and it will have to be cleaned by Enviro Clean to have it all sterilised. We will definitely be up and running this week.”
Leith was pleased there were no animal casualties. “We knew this was coming and took some precautions. We shifted the guinea pigs and rabbits to higher ground and we have some pigs that we had to help to swim to safety,” she said.
“We went down to see the eels and there are 45 very hungry eels down there waiting to be fed. They just hunkered down during the flood and they are really keen.
“The salmon ponds next door also got flooded and we were picking up baby salmon from the lawn. I tell you, our cat was pretty thrilled.”
Residents affected by the flood named and praised individual locals, businesses, tradesmen, contractors and council workers who responded with help and assistance. In the Aorere, big gangs of volunteers were sent out to jobs, fed and fuelled. Michelle Riley and others helped coordinate this effort in Rockville and Rural Women also co-ordinated food supplies. Cr Martine Bouillirconveyed information via a daily email update, collected food from Takaka and wielded a shovel when needed.
Michelle Riley said “There has been fantastic support from the wider Golden Bay community, even from Nelson and further afield people came to help with a real ‘can-do’ attitude and local businesses pulled out all stops to get supplies through. And to come home at night and find a cooked pie on the bench you just have to heat or have some food provided during the day is what left the community not so despondent.
“What people also really did appreciate was that the power came on again so quickly…I have to take my hat off to those guys. They worked all day into the night and in the water to re-establish the power. Without water we could not clean anything and we could not milk the cows. Some cows did not get milked for 36 hours or more.”
Many farmers and others badly affected said they had found the “vague promises of help from higher up” nothing short of frustrating.
Reckoned Graham Pomeroy: “The damage caused by this flood is going to be carried by generations of Aorere farmers to come. It will affect the way we farm here and productivity in the short term at least, is going to be seriously affected. I would have expected the politicians to take it all a bit more seriously.”
MP Chris Auchinvole and TDC Mayor Richard Kempthorne visited the area on Tuesday, fronting up to a meeting of 56 Aorere farmers and other residents to explain both central government’s and council’s response to the disaster.
The Mayor said that that even though the council had been working under Emergency Provisions, which let them shortcut some procedures, it was still constrained by RMA considerations and had to take account of all river users before undertaking long-term works.
TDC rivers engineer Graham Drummond explained that the biggest emergency bailey bridge in the country was two metres too short to replace the James Road bridge and that starting a new bridge would take six months at the earliest. He said that work stabilising the Aorere was currently costing council anywhere up to $30,000 a day, which will easily use up Tasman’s collected river rates from throughout the whole district in a short time.
Mr Auchinvole assured the crowd that at least some of the riverbank and rock re-instatement costs would eventually be shared by central government, although details were sketchy. Local contractor and flood-affected Rockville resident Merv Solly also got up to report on work to date and to lament the loss of the now-defunct Catchment Board.
“They were always working in and around the Aorere riverbed, clearing vegetation and putting in protection works to ensure the river could flow out properly. They were just more onto it back then.”
Said Ferntown dairy farmer Sue Brown: “So far, Civil Defence matters and flood alarm systems are not on the agenda, but some farmers are now hopeful that these issues will get sorted in other meetings in a few weeks’ time.”
Some tourism operators have also been seriously affected, in part by road closures, at the height of the holiday season. The floods’s repercussions on the Bay’s economy may take many months to be fully evident.
Mayor Kempthorne said on 5 January that meetings with various parties this week had further identified needs and costs, and that council would be holding ongoing meetings “for some time.”
