But she warns there will not be a cent to spare for red tape.
Mrs Lash said the grant would be welcomed by landowners waiting to see if the government would come to their aid while large chunks of the land disappeared with every flood.
"But it’s $2 million shy of what the council thought it would get, so they’re going to have to make every cent work to get the right result, and not waste any on more reports and consultants’ fees."
The last Labour government spent $12.5m shoring up stopbanks on the north bank of the Waiho to protect the tourist township but withheld another $8m originally promised for the south bank with its farms and lifestyle blocks.
The stony bed of the short river has risen 8m since the 1950s and now sits well above the level of the town..
That process is speeding up as the glacier retreats, releasing rocks and gravel to the flats below.
Franz Josef is also perched right on the Alpine Fault.
When the Waiho River Management Strategy came out last October, saying the south bank would eventually have to be abandoned to the river, property values there plummeted, destroying equity overnight.
Mrs Lash said the landowners had been "horribly mucked around" by the decision makers and the uncertainty.
"You can’t do that to people’s lives. Every flood they go into stress mode. When you have no skin in the game you don’t get the gravity of it."
The Westland District Council wants to be heavily involved in the stopbank project this time, to make sure ratepayers got the fullest possible benefit from the $6m.
"We want to be sure the community gets the best protection and maximum gain out of it and I’m sure that’s what the government wants to see as well."
In Greymouth this week for a meeting with civic leaders, Mr Jones said the Westland mayor was right about that.
"I have insisted that MBIE maximise the amount of dough that’s spent on practical delivery. We don’t need reams of reports from consultants — we need picks and shovels swinging to and fro, and delivery."
The Franz Josef project, and others in Nelson approved for funding this week under the government’s "Before the Deluge" banner, were all bulldozer-ready, he said.
"There’s a lot of uncertainty in the pipeline from (contracting) firms saying they can’t keep their workforce on unless the money keeps flowing.
"The added virtue of these West Coast projects is that the damn things are consented so the mahi can take place as soon as possible."
Long term, the fate of Franz Josef, the Waiho Flats and those who lived and farmed there would require decisions well above his paygrade, Mr Jones said.
"You are wrestling with Mother Nature there, and all hell could break loose with that river."
— Lois Williams, Local Democracy Reporter
— LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
