Millions of dollars and thousands of jobs relied on stopbanks; were they good enough?

Wednesday, 1 March 2023

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has seen first-hand the destruction caused in the Hawke's Bay by Cyclone Gabrielle.

There was a moment during the PM’s visit of Hawke’s Bay on Wednesday that encapsulated what many in the region had been thinking.

It occurred in the hard-hit Dartmoor area of Hastings, where PM Chris Hipkins was getting a firsthand look at an utterly devastated landscape. Paul Apatu, the owner of one of Hawke’s Bay’s largest horticulture operations, Apatu Farms, was filling the PM in on what had occurred.

The pair, along with the PM’s entourage, were surrounded by wrecked vines, trees and paddocks. An upturned silt-filled car was just metres away.

Apatu Farms operates over some 2500 hectares of freehold and leasehold land. It employs more than 250 people and as well as growing apples, sweetcorn, onions, grapes and other items, it runs about 20,000 lambs, 3000 ewes, and 1500 cattle.

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Prime Minister Chris Hipkins surveys the damage of a kiwifruit orchard at Puketapu, Hawke’s Bay.

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Prime Minister Chris Hipkins with Ngai Tukairangi Trust chairman Ratahi Cross, surveying damage of one of the trust's kiwifruit orchards.

Pointing to row upon row of ruined apple trees, Apatu tells the PM the company had put millions into the development of these orchards.

Then he points to a nearby stopbank of the Tutaekuri river, some 300m from the orchard, and says the destruction was caused when the stopbanks were breached.

“While we were developing and investing in this” he said, pointing to the apple trees, “who was looking after this?” he asked, rhetorically, as he points back to the stop banks.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins met orchard and business owners Paul Apatu, left, and John Bostock (right) on a visit to the hard-hit Dartmoor area in Hastings on Wednesday.

The adequacy of the stopbanks, controlled by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, is being questioned by many. There were dozens of breaches on numerous of the region’s major rivers.

On the other side of the Tutaekuri River the PM met Ngai Tukairangi Trust chairmanRatahi Cross. Together they looked out over gouged-out, silt-covered wasteland that was once a thriving gold kiwifruit orchard.

The Dartmoor area of Hastings still looks like a war zone.

It, too, was wiped out when the river broke through a nearby stopbank. The trust has lost two-thirds, or 40ha of orchard land fruit in the cyclone.

“We’re talking losses in tens of millions of dollars,” Cross said.

The stopbanks clearly were not adequate, he said.

At the end of his visit Hipkins said local orchardists, business and community leaders had made it clear that a “good close look” of things like stopbanks was needed in order to prevent events like this in the future.

The Regional Council’s asset management group manager, Chris Dolley, said the council had started “a full analysis of the event and the flood protection network including stopbanks, pumping stations, river edge tree protection and more”.

“Before Cyclone Gabrielle, we had started to lift flood protection on the Heretaunga Plains scheme from 1-in-100-year flood levels to 1-in-500-year levels. We are working together with central government, iwi, communities and local businesses to build resilience in our river communities,” Dolley said.

“We secured $19.2 million through Kānoa - Regional Economic Development & Investment Unit (Kānoa - RDU) for the Resilient River Communities (RRC) Programme, to protect and mitigate the effects of climate change. With this funding, we upgraded the Taradale stopbank late last year – which was instrumental in protecting much of Napier from catastrophic flooding and plan to upgrade further areas,” he said.

Dolley said the council had developed a system to identify the highest-risk locations and was putting short-term repairs, involving gravel bunds, in place.

“Stopbanks will be repaired back to the original level of service as fast as possible. We have a lot of work ahead of us to repair and then to upgrade the stopbanks but the people of Hawke’s Bay should be confident that we are getting on as quickly as we can,” Dolley said.