Dam helps keep flood water at bay from catchment
Recent high rainfall events in South Canterbury have highlighted the role the Opuha Dam plays in managing floods.
Farmers face silted paddocks, washed away bales, closed roads and broken fences and water lines.
“Probably the worst affected farming community is the west of Takaka because there’s a slip that’s closed the road,” Federated Farmers Golden Bay provincial president Graham Ball told Rural News.
“There are probably 45 or 50 dairy farms that won’t have their milk picked up. That’s a huge concern because they’re saying it might be four or five days before the road’s fixed.”
With capacity to store two, or at most three days’ supply, some could be forced to dump milk to pasture through the effluent system.
On his own farm water pipes have been washed away, requiring temporary repairs just to be able to washdown the shed. There’s a sense of déjà vu to the job, having had to make similar repairs last Christmas.
“On the 28th of December last year we had the big Aorere flood which did a similar thing. That added two weeks’ extra work.”
That said, with the rain easing this afternoon, this storm could have been much worse, he adds.
“If the rivers had come a bit higher there would have been a lot more damage. The Aorere valley has a bit of silting but nothing like last December at this stage.”
Similarly the Takaka river had coped with the deluge, despite some reports of 700mm of rain over the past 48 hours.
Feds’ Nelson provincial president says the damage there is mostly in the east, along the fringe of the Richmond ranges and north of Nelson.
“There are lots of surface slips... but it’s difficult to see with the cloud low and the rain still falling.”
On most farms “it’s not too bad” he says, though some hay and silage paddocks have been inundated.
“I saw 50 or 60 round bales that had floated across a paddock and ended up in a culvert.”
At Cable Bay, northeast of Nelson, farmers and holiday parker owners Ian and Barbara Stuart are cut off by slips.
“We have a couple of stranded campers in the camp who will not be able to leave today and the farm is a wreck – slips everywhere,” they told Rural News.
They managed to stop the creek flooding into most of the camp and were hopeful they’d be able to resume holiday business when the road’s opened.
“Our house is Ok but I fear many of the residents along the road will have substantial damage to their properties. It’s been a long eerie night listening to rocks in the creek and wondering what damage daylight would bring.
“The rain gauge overflowed overnight so we have no idea what has fallen except to guess over 300mls!”
Nelson Mayor Aldo Miccio says rainfall over the last two days has broken a number of records triggering a state of emergency, “something the region has not seen for over 20 years.”
“While the rivers have been coping relatively well the rain has caused severe surface flooding and has saturated land to the point of movement. This is not a short term event - its effects are going to be felt for some time.”
