A big blow-out in funds to manage flood damage on the lower Waitaki River has prompted the development of a strategy to rank remedial projects.
Some of the previously planned work might not even be done.
The proposed strategy, developed by the Otago Regional Council (ORC), Environment Canterbury (ECan)
and stakeholder groups, recommends fairway maintenance, occasional channel realignment, targeted bank protection, tying and lopping of willows, selective buffer zone planting and maintenance of key groynes.
A report to a meeting of the ORC's technical committee this week said encroachment into buffer zones, some of which are publicly owned, was an issue and the new strategy would not allow grazing, vegetation clearance or other farming within established buffer zones.
Property owners would be required to pay for measures to exclude stock from buffer zones.
Where farming already encroached into primary and secondary buffer zones, landowners would be expected to retire these areas and establish protection plantings.
In 2007-08, the two councils' joint fund for work on the river showed a $41,701 surplus.
After four floods between 2009 and 2013, the fund crashed to a $464,732 deficit and is projected at the end of this financial year to still have a $240,0000 deficit.
Meridian Energy pays 40% of the cost, because of its power schemes on the river.
The ORC and ECan split the rest, partly through a targeted rate on property owners, based on benefit.
The lower Waitaki River is overseen by a river liaison group, which includes ORC and Ecan ratepayer representatives.
The group makes recommendations and reviews annual works programmes and budgets.
The group accepted in 2011 cost increases and large financial deficits were not sustainable and a management strategy was needed to reduce the level of river works done to a level that was affordable and recognised the river's dynamic and shifting nature.
The report said it was not simply prioritising works to ease cashflow, but addressing a more fundamental issue of whether certain works, especially remedying flood damage to land, should even be done.
Under the new strategy, the aim is to return the account to surplus by 2016-17.
The ORC's technical committee this week recommended the council endorse the strategy at its May 16 meeting.
It also recommended staff work with ECan staff and stakeholders to implement it and chief executive Peter Bodeker work with ECan to develop a new management model for the lower Waitaki River.
