Local Focus: Floodgates still open in Riversdale, Wairarapa

Cyclone Hale left Riversdale farms with metre-deep river sediment covering entire paddocks and kilometres of fence lines ruined.

Mike Taylor’s farm was one of the worst hit.

He had just spent about $14,000 to re-gravel his driveway in November, only to have it washed out and full of holes just a few weeks later.

His cattle yards were deep in sediment, the force of the water had flattened gates, and one of his calf-raising barns was filled with sludge.

“It’s gone right through the shed. That’s another job for another day,” he said.

What had been a gentle stream flowed far past its banks and all the way to the edge of one of his paddocks.

Taylor said logs above his property had been pushed down the creek, causing “a log jam in there that’s about eight feet high”.

Over the road, Taylor’s neighbour, Quinn Tua-Davidson, had floodwaters wash through his kitchen and damage piles under his house.

He said the water was at least waist-deep, reaching up the exterior walls of his house.

Some areas of Tua-Davidson’s farm were left a metre deep in silt, while fence lines were drowned for about 5km.

“It’s not just a matter of fixing it again. It’s a pull-down and start again job.”

While assessing the damage, Taylor found a gumboot in one of Tua-Davidson’s trees.

Tua-Davidson is worried about how he’ll continue to farm as climate change-driven weather events become more frequent.

Along the road, chunks of chip seal were ripped up by the raging waters and pushed into roadside drains.

Riversdale’s beach settlement turned into a disaster zone when flood waters washed through homes and wiped out the beach’s lagoon.

Now the beach is littered with slash, forestry offcuts washed down from inland.

Taylor said the stream was a torrent during the flood. It eroded the stream bank and the lagoon disappeared.

The north end of the beach is now almost entirely inaccessible.

Riversdale Surf Lifesaving Club chair Dave Rose said up to six homes at the beach were flooded during the cyclone, with considerable damage to their properties. A number of other properties also sustained damage to their gardens and garages.

He said the community rallied together to reduce the impact of flood waters and remove furniture and other personal items from the flooded homes.

Properties were sandbagged and pumps from the Rural Fire brigade were used to remove water.

Rose said the local streams couldn’t cope with the quantity of water coming down from the hills, and flooding the beach-front town.

“The homes will be put back together again. There’s a bit of a thank you being put on this Friday by one of the families for people that helped them. We are a resilient community, and I’m sure we’ll bounce back,” she said.

Rose said the stream that ran to the beach was now about a third bigger than it was before, and it could take up to a year for it to return to its previous state.

He said it was possible to cross the stream, but only on a quad-bike at low tide.

“The stream is now a river,” Rose said.

Inland, farmer Mike Butterick had fences filled with branches and kilometres of floodgates to repair.

“Pretty much every floodgate up every gully is gone.”

He said it is hard to contain stock with flattened fences and it is hard to get in to fix them. Yellowed and dying crops could be seen as he drove down the road to his farm.

“We’ve got about a hectare of drowned fodder beet,” he noted.

Butterick said the past year had been extremely tough for cropping farmers who had already had to absorb extra costs to plant their crops this season.

“And then mother nature let them down at the last minute.”

Butterick said big storms seemed to be happening more and more frequently, something he said was linked to climate change.

The next opportunity to fix some of the pasture damage would be in Autumn, Butterick said, but the damage he suffered was nothing compared to crop farmers.

“Costs could be in the hundreds of thousands.”

Despite Government having pledged $80,000 to be shared among Wairarapa farmers, Butterick joked that would only be “enough to put a couple of road signs up”.

Meanwhile, Taylor said it is hard to say what the long-term effect of the damage would be.

“I would think I’m going to probably sell a little bit of stock because we’re certainly going to be down a usable area.

“I’m not really sure how long it will take. Just what do you do? Do you lift the fence out and start again from the top?”

- Article written by Ellie Franco and Wairarapa Times-Age reporter Grace Prior.

Public Interest Journalism Fund