Solution sought for 45,000 cubic metres of forestry debris lining Gisborne beach
Thursday, 27 September 2018
What's to be done with 45,000 cubic metres of logs stacked into 27 large piles on Tolaga Bay?
That's the question being pondered by Gisborne District Council and put to residents, who have been given four options: stacking it somewhere nearby at a cost of around $5000, burning it on the beach at a cost of around $10,000, storing or burying it on neighbouring reserves or private land at a cost of $650,000, or mulching it into a saleable product at a cost of about $2.5million.
The debris, mostly pine from forestry blocks, was stacked into 27 piles by forestry contractors after the storms that wreaked havoc on the area north of Gisborne in July.
The council has gone to residents this week saying 'there's no easy solution and it's likely a combination of solutions will be needed to deal with the debris over the medium to long term'.
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'We also still need to determine how to pay for any solution we go ahead with. We're exploring external funding options and assistance from forestry to avoid ratepayers having to bear the cost of the clean-up,' the council said in an update this week
The council's investigation into forestry issues in the area was expected to be completed by December.
Last month the council issued abatement notices to a number of the forestry companies in the Tolaga Bay catchment. Those abatement notices required companies to cease actions contravening their resource consent conditions relating to forestry debris, skid sites, erosion risk and sediment control.
'Given that some of the forestry companies have appealed their abatement notices, we can't comment further while these cases are before the Court. However our enforcement officers have recently carried out inspections to check compliance and have found that forestry companies appear to have made good progress in addressing the issues highlighted in the abatement notices, in the forests they inspected,' the council said.
Residents were told there could be further collapses, debris issues and flooding as 'we have found issues where debris is lying on very steep sided slopes and has worked its way into gullies that are no longer retrievable by machinery or too dangerous for people to access'.
'Some of these areas are susceptible to landslides. There are also issues beyond our statutory powers and resources to address where material has made it outside of the forest and large amounts of slash has built up in rivers or is already on flood plains in the catchments. Council are doing everything we can to ensure forestry companies comply with their resource consents,' it said.
The Gisborne district was hit by two major rain events in June. The event on June 4 caused flooding and erosion and forced the evacuation of people in the Tolaga Bay area, while an event on June 11 was more widespread and closed SH2 between Gisborne and Opotiki.
Community meetings on a draft recovery plan will be held in Tolaga Bay and Te Karaka early next month.
The plan will address issues caused by the storms and feedback will be sought.