Wairoa Mayor Craig Little says his district would consider severing ties with the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC).

Faced with a $40 million clean-up from flooding that he believes HRBC could have mitigated, Little says this latest weather event could be the “catalyst’’ for change.

“Oh, I think we can,’’ Little told BayBuzz in response to a question about disestablishing its relationship with HBRC. They have to start thinking about what their role is and who they represent.’’

While the Wairoa District Council (WDC) and its ratepayers have to deal with the aftermath of the river bursting its banks, they don’t have the autonomy to try and prevent it.

That’s the responsibility of the Napier-based HBRC.

“So I’ve had some people come out and go, ‘God the mayor’s weak, he should’ve just made the decision and gotten on and done it’. Well, I won’t work in a state of anarchy,’’ said Little. “That’s not how you do it. But the regional council, that’s their obligation. And, don’t forget, I came to them on Monday and they told me it was all good.’’

Little, as he’s repeated on various occasions since water from the Wairoa River inundated 400 properties in the town last week, wanted a local contractor to clear the river bar.

He communicated that to HBRC chair Hinewai Ormsby and chief executive Nic Peet on June 24. The contractor, Hamish Pryde, was eventually mobilised by HBRC the following day.

Too late, as it turned out, to sufficiently stem or divert the tide of water.

A WDC-commissioned report into the flooding caused by Cyclone Gabrielle, which was released in April, noted that the river is a frequent flood risk and that the rivermouth has been manually opened “continuously since early European settlement’’.

But the decision to do so no longer rests in local hands. “HBRC is the governing authority with accountability for management of the river mouth. During the tenure of the Catchment Board a river engineer was based in Wairoa with accountability for river mouth management,’’ says the cyclone report, written by former HBRC chief executive Andrew Newman.

The report continues …

“At the formation of the Regional Council, engineering operations were centralised out of Napier and the responsibility for mouth opening decisions transferred to other Wairoa based HBRC staff. These staff worked closely with one local contractor. Through that time the bar has been successfully manually opened approximately 20 times ahead of significant storm events. During that period there were, according to the personnel involved, no flooding issues other than for the yacht club, located in the lower berm section of the river. 

“The view of all the personnel involved through this period is that there is a significant degree of onsite judgement, coupled with experience, required for a successful and timely manual bar opening. These involve a balance of timing, river flow head and sea conditions. 

“In recent years, the practice has changed whereby HBRC makes the bar opening decision from Napier using the same contractor. “There is a Wairoa Community view that the bar opening process is riskier than that previously in place. In large part this perspective has formed because of the view that local decision making, institutional memory, and experience has diminished. An example of this is the flooding of a local business, the Limery, and surrounding land near the river mouth on November 26, 2023.’’ [Editor: And again flooded in this recent event.]

Newman’s recommendation was that: “In the absence of more costly infrastructure solutions for the mouth, recent history suggests there is a solution i.e., the use of expert local based staff and contractors being given sufficient discretion to make timely decisions on mouth opening. This approach requires an institutional continuity of approach.’’

Mayor Little believes it was HBRC who should have commissioned the Newman review. The fact they didn’t and, to his knowledge, haven’t acted upon Newman’s findings, results in a town wanting a return to self-determination.

“This is the catalyst for the community because they’ve been saying for a number of years that this isn’t going right,’’ Little said.

If this had happened in isolation, then Little says Wairoa residents wouldn’t be so fed up. But, coming just over a year after HBRC’s response to Cyclone Gabrielle, which he described as “all over the show”, is just too much.

The HBRC declined BayBuzz’s requests to comment on some of Little’s assertions. A spokesperson said they will wait until after the release of a review into this latest flooding event.

In the meantime, Little says his embattled community is doing what it can to clean up and recover. “The irony is everyone across the country’s helping us, except for those who should be,’’ he said.

[Editor: Since we published this article, the Gov’t has “re-purposed” $3m from the HB allotment for silt clean-up to Wairoa, considering that use a higher priority. Mayor Little appears to have reached friendly ears in Wellington.]

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