Think now, avoid panic later

I’m not even into local body politics yet but already the misquotations have started. In the last week I have been reported to be standing as Mayor of Auckland (I’m not), for the Auckland Regional Council (no again), I’ve chosen the deputy mayor (wrong), I’m strongly in favour of fluoridation or bitterly opposed to it, depending on who is talking (I’ve not expressed any opinion on this issue) and I opposed the Declaration of an Emergency in last week’s flood, (I didn’t).

With regard to the flood, I have great sympathy for those who suffered losses recently but I’m not sure that they needed to face all that devastation, if we had had better planning before rather than hand wringing and states of Emergency after. All that does is bring in the TV cameras and the impression that we can’t handle things ourselves. TVNZ was still showing Kaeo to be under water days after floodwaters had cleared.

Any Dutch engineer will tell you that there are solutions for protecting low lying land. The inundation of Switzer Home and the Oxford Pensioner homes demands answers to serious questions. Was there a sudden surge just before and if so was this as a result of an action or inaction? Who is responsible for maintenance of banks and removal of vegetation from the waterways, Regional Council, FNDC, DoC, anyone? Did the computer modelling of the flood flow indicate a weak bank at the failure point? Is there a computer model?

Experience with our subdivision at the northern end of Kaitaia raised questions, first being that the Whangatane Floodway, so necessary for the town’s safety is not in public hands but we own it. Bizarrely there doesn’t seem to be any legal impediment to us just filling it in. That’s being fixed, however the experience of achieving good stormwater design involving our engineers, Regional Council engineers in Whangarei and FNDC engineers, (who turn out to be junior consultants in an office in Manukau City) does not build confidence.

The other culprit with regard to flooding is Transit NZ, who own State Hiways 1 and 10, which cross large tracts of low lying land interfering with natural floodpaths. Every year they raise these roads, yet no additional culverts seems to go in to reduce the ponding caused by the hiways. I’m sure that this was a major contributor to problems at Kaingaroa and Waipapa. By the way Transit think that Donald’s Lane is a major east/west traffic route for Kaitaia, yet it’s just a narrow road with speed humps leading to a restricted weight bridge!