Residents blame Council for ongoing flooding

Recent storms and heavy rain have highlighted issues with the maintenance and capabilities of local stormwater infrastructure.

Coast residents, including those in low lying parts of Stanmore Bay and Red Beach, have been repeatedly flooded and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Auckland Council’s Healthy Waters (stormwater) department.

Fleur Mulgrew and partner Saurabh Sharma live alongside the culvert that runs along Brightside Road in Stanmore Bay.

Their property flooded on Anniversary Day and again during this month’s heavy rain.

The rising water, which covered their backyard picnic table, has left the kitchen, and workshop/studio subsiding.

The culvert quickly filled and overflowed, leaving the bridge from their home across the culvert underwater.

Sharma says the culvert has got much more shallow in recent years, and is filling up with silt and rubbish, as well as being overgrown. He says during this month’s flood he and a group of neighbours found large pieces of debris, including a big storage bin, in it, blocking a grate.

“After the first flood, someone should have come to clear the culvert, and the nearby Kauri Road stream – that would have made a difference when the second flood came,” Sharma says. “The culvert is now much shallower than it used to be. It is not coping and we want it regularly maintained and that silt cleared out.”

Andrew Skelton, head of operations of Council’s Healthy Waters (stormwater) division, says they are sympathetic to Stanmore Bay residents who have experienced flooding during recent severe weather events.

“To mitigate flooding impacts in this area, Council’s Healthy Waters team clear the inlet grills/culverts in Kauri Road monthly, as well as before and after each storm event,” Skelton says. “In addition, we check and clear the nearby Brightside Road stream every three months and will respond to requests for blockages in this stream to be removed. We removed a wheelie bin, cones and many other items following the most recent severe rainfall event.”

He says the Kauri Road stream is completely within private land, so property owners are responsible for ensuring that water can flow freely through it.

“However, requests for assistance with private stream blockages are assessed and responded to on a case-by-case basis. In Kauri Road, we recently assisted residents with a tree removal, and are currently arranging to remove some bamboo from private property embankments.”

In addition, Healthy Waters is continuing to explore options to reduce flooding in Stanmore Bay and will modify the grille in D’Oyly Reserve with some wider spacing to reduce blocking, which Skelton says should significantly reduce flooding in Kauri Road. But he says Healthy Waters does not remove silt from streams as a flood prevention strategy.

“This is because silt occurs naturally and will continually form during rainfall events. Mechanical clearance of silt can also have potentially negative impacts on a stream’s ecological environment, including stirring up more sediment and removing vegetation and aquatic fauna [such as eels]. For this reason, this type of work generally requires a resource consent whether carried out by the council or private residents.”

“If residents have specific concerns about the silt in this stream they are welcome to log a request for service by calling 09 301 0101 and we will arrange an engineer to investigate.” Mulgrew and Sharma are skeptical and say how much damage to people’s homes does there need to be before the streams and culverts are cleared.

“I am at the stage where I will hire a digger and do the job myself,” Sharma says Meanwhile, a group of Red Beach residents with the same concerns about the maintenance of stormwater infrastructure came to the local board May 23 meeting, having reached crisis point.

Carol Jones told Hibiscus & Bays Local Board members that seven households were inundated during the Anniversary

Day floods, with water flowing across like a river from William Bayes Park.

She said a Council staff member who visited her property after the floods told her the stormwater drains in the park could not cope with the water, and were blocked. “The culvert that runs under part of our property and along the back of other homes in Maire Ave is also blocked and overgrown and we were told it would be cleared,” she said.

The properties were flooded again on May 9, and William Bayes Park was once more underwater.

Jones says she and her neighbours are at their wits’ end, and asked the local board for urgent action.

“None of us can sleep when it rains and we are all very anxious about future flooding.”

They want the culvert cleared as soon as possible, and then properly maintained –“it’s what we pay our rates for, but we are considering not paying them until this is done,” Jones said.

The group also wants the stormwater drains in the park upgraded.

“There has been a lot of infill housing go in, and runoff is increasing. We get that the Anniversary Day flood was extreme, but this is happening more and more and we need infrastructure that can cope.”

The local board agreed that proactive, rather than reactive, maintenance is needed and said they would push the issue forward.

The board also resolved to ask how Council’s storm fund (1 percent additional rate), if approved in the budget, can be used locally and how the community can benefit from central Government’s stormwater fund.

Raw sewage “10 times worse” than flooding

A combination of floodwater and raw sewage has made the home owned by Lancelot Cheshire in Kauri Road, Stanmore Bay, uninhabitable. Cheshire’s property has been hit with flooding three times in four months, but this month the sewage was worse, when a manhole on his driveway again popped its top and spilled its contents. His tenants had to move out, as toxic water and sludge rose to floorboard level. All the material in his newly laid driveway and entrance had to be removed – Watercare contractors sucked up more than 6 tons of decorative shell paving that now had waste stuck to it. While insurance has covered work on the interior of the house, Cheshire says he is talking to EQC about recovering all that he spent on the exterior. He and a neighbour are is looking at whether his property could be linked with the culvert behind, so the water has somewhere to flow away to – however, the culvert is blocked with tree branches and rubbish. “My key problem is the manhole, because the sewage makes the flooding 10 times worse,” Cheshire says. “What can I do if this keeps happening? Will the house be liveable?” He asked Watercare whether the manhole could be bolted down. Watercare head of service delivery, Sharon Danks, says crews have cleaned up the property twice, both times starting the process the same day the overflows were reported. “Unfortunately, due to the intensity and high volumes of rainfall, there were hundreds of overflows across the city,” Danks says. “This is because rainwater can get into wastewater pipes by seeping in through flooded manholes or through small cracks in private or public pipes.” She says bolting down manholes is something that is only considered for a problem site where overflows are occurring in unusual circumstances, and where there is a better alternative location for the overflow to occur. “As these overflows [in Kauri Rd] have occurred in extreme wet weather events, this is not something we’re considering at the moment,” Danks says.