31 May 2010
The big Motueka River flood of 16 May has drained the Tasman District Council's emergency fund, but the council's engineering services committee chairman Trevor Norriss disputes that forestry companies are to blame for property damage.
Torrents of water brought logs from forestry sites crashing onto private properties, causing some residents to flee their homes, during this month's flooding.
Mr Norriss told The Nelson Mail he was "sick and tired" of the forestry industry being blamed for damage. "It was a one-in-70-year rainfall that caused the problem," he said. The council has been left scratching for cash to meet its $500,000 cleanup bill from the floods.
Mr Norriss said it was impossible to plan for such an event. "It will take some time to repair the damage, after the big winds, the snow and now this – it's just what we didn't want."
Mr Norriss told a committee meeting there was "clear evidence" that debris from logging operations, skid sites collapsing and slash "had not helped", but forestry companies were helping with the cleanup. He said to avoid "another disaster" large piles of logs on river beaches needed to be burnt before they were swept down rivers.
Forestry companies were not allowed to burn slash. There needed to be talks at a local and national level to see if the rules could be changed, he said.
A Federated Farmers spokesman, Martin O'Connor, who farms on the Tapawera-Baton Rd, said Nelson Forests had been helping with the cleanup.
"They have tried to help people out and have done what they can." He said the logs were not just from forestry but were also the product of windfall and native bush slips.
Source: Nelson Mail. To read the full story, click here.
