Govt launches review into HBRC management of Wairoa River

The Government is giving the Wairoa community another $500,000 to help it recover from devastating flooding and will lead an urgent review into how Hawke’s Bay Regional Council managed the Wairoa River. 

The river flooded more than 400 properties as heavy rain lashed the East Coast last week, and Mayor Craig Little says there has been about $40 million worth of damage. 

Little lifted Wairoa’s state of emergency this morning.   

Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell announced the extra funding — which follows an initial $100,000 last week — during a visit to Wairoa today. 

“Last week’s flooding has been really tough for Wairoa, particularly following the impacts of other severe weather events in the past couple of years, and the district council have indicated that they require financial support to clean up damaged properties,” he said. 

The money would be spent on “immediate and pressing needs”, including the clean-up of sections, replacing clothes and bedding, and the hire and purchase of drying and dehumidifying equipment. 

Residents were showing a sense of resilience despite the misfortune that had come their way in the past 16 months, Mitchell said. 

“A big part of the recovery is people seeing things happening quickly,” he said, promising the Government was trying to speed things up as much as possible. 

Mitchell praised the efforts of volunteers, Civil Defence and the council, emergency services, iwi, contractors and everyone who was supporting the Wairoa community. 

“Thank you for the work you are doing — it has been heartening to see how strong our communities are when we stand together.” 

Environment Minister Penny Simmonds announced the urgent review into how the regional council (HBRC) managed the river. 

HBRC has already admitted Wairoa would have flooded less if a channel to let the rising river release into the sea was dug sooner. 

The Wairoa River bar is a raised area of sediment and gravel that builds up at the rivermouth. 

HBRC put contractors on standby on Friday, June 21, to open the channel but they were not given the go-ahead until mid-afternoon on the Monday. 

The Wairoa River bar also caused significant issues during Cyclone Gabrielle. 

Wairoa’s Flood Protection Stakeholder Group chair Lawrence Yule said in April there was a need to capture local knowledge around the bar and preserve that for future generations, to support robust processes. 

A report released in April about last year’s flooding said there would be “improvements” to the bar and it would be “proactively managed” with local input and short-term decision-making ability. 

Earlier this week HBRC announced it was commissioning an external review of how the process was handled. 

Mayor Little is among those who support a Government review of how the regional council responded during the emergency, and has pointed the finger at how it managed the river. 

He wanted the regional council to own up and say sorry. 

He said legal action could be on the cards, but he did not want it to go that far. 

“I’d hate to be in a situation where councils are fighting each other. 

“But it’s pretty simple this one really. Just give us an apology for God sake and just say ‘hey, I don’t think we got this one right’.” 

The minister shared his concerns. 

“This review will look at whether there was adequate monitoring of the state of the Wairoa River bar; whether correct decisions were made in a timely way; and whether there were any other actions that could have been taken,” Simmonds said. 

“It is about finding out where improvements can be made so we can better manage future events and protect communities.” 

Mitchell said: “The people of Wairoa feel very strongly that they want some answers around the management of that rivermouth. 

“And the other side to it which is very important too is giving some certainty that we can identify what the problems were so we can have confidence it doesn’t happen again.” 

Simmonds, who also visited Wairoa today, said the review would look at the monitoring, the decision-making and how it all went wrong. 

“These families are going through a huge amount. It’s impressive what they’re doing for each other and we need to do our bit about what caused this.” 

A givealittle page set up to help fund the town’s recovery has now reached $165,000. 

But Little said the town should not have to fundraise to survive, and $600,000 from the Government was only the equivalent of repairing five homes. 

The review is expected to take about four weeks, with findings and recommendations to be presented to HBRC in August. - RNZ, NZ Herald