By ANNE BESTON
An emergency rock wall and sandbank have been built at Hatfields Beach, north of Orewa, after a storm washed away part of a bank, threatening a row of pohutukawa trees and bringing the beach closer to State Highway 1.
Two trees were lost during the storm. Two others were
"looking precarious," said Rodney District Council engineer Craig Davis.
Rodney District Council staff worked frantically to protect the bank during Sunday's storm.
Transit state highways manager Phil Sutton said the situation was being monitored. But the beach's northern end had taken the worst battering, and here there was still some 8m of land protecting the road from the sea.
At the narrowest point, in the middle of the bay, just 1.5m of bank is left.
Mr Sutton said that once the new Albany to Puhoi motorway was complete, in about two to three years, the road might revert to a local one. Rodney District Council and Transit were discussing ownership.
Mr Davis said a resource consent application had been about to go before the Auckland Regional Council for work at the beach, but that was overtaken by events this week.
"We are working hard to make sure we do not lose the trees. The sand and rocks are a last line of defence," he said.
But Hatfields Beach resident Maitland Hillson said the work was "too little too late." During submissions on the council's annual plan two weeks ago he had warned the next storm would seriously undermine the bank.
Meanwhile, fine weather yesterday eased the threat of North Shore City's wastewater treatment plant ponds overflowing into waterways.
The level of Lake Rosedale, as the oxidation ponds are known, had risen on Monday to within 180mm of overflowing after record flows into the plant from stormwater entering sewers.
Plant manager Steve Singleton said emergency spilling of sewage into Albany waterways was no longer a threat. But it would take several more rainless days for the lake to fall to normal levels.
For the first time since Thursday, the city's sewage pumping stations stopped overflowing, but 14 beaches continue to be closed to bathing.
