Board chairman Andrew Simms recently highlighted the state of the Taieri River, Owhiro Stream and Silver Stream in light of flood events in the North Island.
Regional council engineering manager Michelle Mifflin said it was in the final stages of completing the Outram seepage mitigation works, which addressed potential seepage issues observed historically within a section between Huntly Rd and Orme St.
The work is being carried out through the council’s climate resilience programme.
It includes installing a weighting blanket in rural residential land on the Outram side of the floodbank immediately north of Huntly Rd.
The weighting blanket mitigated the risk of seepage during high river flows, Ms Mifflin said.
The bulk of the construction work in relation to this project was now complete with some drainage infrastructure remaining to be installed.
The functioning of the Lower Taieri flood protection scheme was at present being reviewed and the outcome of this process would provide an indication of potential changes to the operation of the scheme in the next long-term plan (2024-2034).
"While we are in the midst of this review, we are unable to pre-empt what the potential outcomes of this process will be, however these will be shared with the community when they do become available and there will be the opportunity for further community engagement through future long-term plan processes."
The Owhiro Stream did not have any physical works planned under council’s current long-term plan (2021-2031) to address channel capacity, however the Taieri scheme review did take into account the Owhiro Stream.
The council also monitored the stream closely including channel capacity and flow.
Large sections of the Owhiro stream and tributaries were part of the council’s East Taieri drainage scheme, which is designed to provide land drainage to a rural standard, she said.
Work was planned for the Silver Stream under council’s long-term plan (2021-2031) to address channel capacity through gravel realignment and extraction to ensure the base profile of the channel was maintained.
This work was contingent on consenting processes which were expected to be completed this calendar year.
- Ms Mifflin said the council performed routine inspection and maintenance of the floodbank on a regular basis.
If the community had concerns with areas of the floodbanks they could contact the council by emailing engineering@orc.govt.nz and sending a description of the location and ideally a photo, she said.
