Mokau seawall
Waitomo District Council has been told it can’t hold back the waves forever at Mōkau.
Residents Neil Wackrow and Gregory Tuffey appeared before the council’s hearings committee last week to speak against the council’s proposal to spend more than $900,000 to replace its rock revetment at the mouth of Mōkau River at the end of Point Road.
The proposal was included in the council’s draft annual plan after Point Road residents called for a public-private partnership.
Tuffey told the council his parents had avoided buying in Point Road in the 1970s because there was an understanding the sand spit would eventually be washed away.
“People bought down there at a fire sale price,” he said. “They got it cheap, believing it could go. Unfortunately, it’s going to go. There’s nothing we can do.”
Wackrow said a Mōkau Museum document showed that the spit was expected to have eroded away by now.
“Some of the landowners have brought it knowing that the sand spit can go,” he said. “No more money should be wasted on the point seawall as it will only fail in short time. Enough money has been wasted already,” he said.
Tangata whenua representative Mārama Henare-Waho told the council the building of baches and homes on the sandspit, known by her people as Te Naunau, should never been allowed to happen as the sandspit was a burial ground.
“In the 1950s the predecessor of today’s council was granted ownership of most of Te Naunau, except two half-acre sections set aside as burial reserves. Excluding these reserves, the council sold most of Te Naunau for residential lots. Te Naunau is a wāhi tapu, a sacred place. Ancestors of local hapū were interred there.”
Henare-Waho said some ancestors were exhumed and reburied elsewhere, but many were left at Te Naunau.
She asked the council to remove the seawall at the expense of Point Road residents and manage the erosion by planting sand-dune building plants.
Te Whare Mōkau ki Runga and Tama Blackburn also asked the council not to replace the seawall.
Waikato Regional Council asked to join the conversation at the hearing.
Regional councillor Stu Kneebone said: “Our ultimate aim is to create a sustainable outcome for the community.”
Regional council science, policy and information director Tracey May’s submission strongly encouraged the district council to consider undertaking a wider community adaptation project in collaboration with the regional council and the Mōkau community.
“This would provide the opportunity to explore a series of options that could be implemented in the short, medium and longer term, taking into consideration sea level rise and climate change, and providing for a more resilient Mōkau,” May’s submission said.
The regional council is working in collaboration with Hauraki, Thames-Coromandel, and Waikato district councils on plans to increase the resilience of their coastal communities to current and future natural hazards and climate change. Other government agencies working in these projects include the New Zealand Transport Agency, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry for the Environment, and the Department of Internal Affairs.
“Working proactively to plan for the community’s long-term resilience allows Waitomo District Council to implement direction under the Waikato Regional Council Policy Statement,” she said.
“In a 100-year context, repairing a seawall that only lasts approximately ten years does not align with the objectives of the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement. Therefore, we advocate for a wider and more holistic view to natural hazard risk mitigation.”
“Focusing on risk mitigation via structural defences is likely to create an expectation in the community that this can be carried out long-term, however we note that projected increases in erosion rates and sea level rise will make the costs prohibitive for the community in the long term. We also note that the size and location of the sea wall (approximately 60m of the Mōkau sea wall) are likely to limit the proposal’s benefits for the wider community.”
