Taieri Flood Plans are Sinking

What is going on with the Taieri flood planning process? Major changes have seemingly been made by the Regional Council secretly behind closed doors to the long standing processes for flood planning and emergency flood response for the Taieri.

Ever since the catastrophic Taieri floods of 1980 there has been an agreed process for planning and responding to flooding on the Taieri which has been led and overseen by the Taieri Flood Council. These plans have revolved around local volunteers and local contracts so that it can be communicated and activated very quickly with planned responses through the best people within the local community. But now, without any communication or consultation about this, it seems that the Regional Council have instead now contracted Fulton Hogan to be in charge of Taieri flood planning and emergency response, and that Fulton Hogan are themselves sub-contracting that responsibility. No one has been informed about this change, including the Taieri flooding Emergency Response Group.

So what happens if suddenly there is a major flooding problem in the middle of the night on the Taieri. Under the previous set up, phone calls would quickly be made across the local Emergency Response Group and local farmers who are all in close contact with each other, and plans can be immediately activated. Critical equipment and extra generators can be quickly gathered and activated from around the community. Rapid and effective response is the critical issue. But what happens now? Why hasn’t there been any discussion and consultation on this with the people who understand this issue the best and who are in the best position for rapid response? What is in the contract that has been signed off between the Regional Council and Fulton Hogan? Who has what responsibilities and what are the processes? The most important people for effectively responding to a sudden crisis on the Taieri have just been chopped out completely.

It’s not like this is a small issue. If the bottom of the Taieri Plains floods, then so does Dunedin Airport.

This feels very much like a continuation of the very concerning trend across NZ farming of chopping the local community out of NZ farming and replacing them with big corporations that are under the control of BIG GOVERNMENT. It feels very much like more of UN Agenda 21 and UN Agenda 2030 for rural NZ.