Stopbank damage put at $1 million

Press, 1 June 1988, Page 2

Stopbank damage put at $1 million

The total damage to Westland Catchment Board protection works in the flooding this month has been estimated by the board at $1,061,000. The figure was based on what the board had been told by farmers, said the chief engineer, Mr Henry Clarke, at a meeting in Greymouth yesterday which was co-ordinating a regional report for the Government on flood damage. The damage, he said, had been divided into three priorities. The first, which involved damage totalling $601,500, was “urgent” work required to protect farmland. The board hoped toattract a 90 per cent subsidy from the Government for these repairs. The second category, involving damage totalling $191,800, was urgent but generally affected Only one landowner, and a Government subsidy of 75 per cent was considered appropriate. The third category

involving $268,000 damage was for less urgent works for which the board would look for a 60 per cent subsidy. Mr Clarke said that in the first category was the damaged trotting ground at Murchison. “The Buller River has taken a great chunk out of it. It looks as if the river could change course and go right through it” The board could build a hook groyne at a cost of about $200,000, ior alternatively could rock the area at half the cost. The board’s general manager, Mr Warwick Coombridge, said that a subsidy “rate:... or an assistance package related to the ability of the community to fund the priority works was needed. ■'< However, the board was not enthusiastic about the likely response from the Government, as its disaster fund totalled $1.2 million.