Kopeopeo Canal Remediation works to start soon

The removal of sediment from a section of Whakatane's Kopeopeo Canal looks set to start in the coming months.

The removal of sediment from a section of Whakatane's Kopeopeo Canal looks set to start in the coming months.

A press statement from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council today said the appointment of a contractor to the Kopeopeo Remediation Project would see work begin into removing, safely storing, and treating up to 40,000m3 of sediment from the canal.

The project is co-funded by the Ministry for the Environment through the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund (CSRF).

A consortium headed by EnviroWaste Services Limited has been awarded the contract for the removal of the sediment from a 5.1km section of the canal.

EnviroWaste will lead the contract supported by a range of technical and specialist companies with civil works carried out by local company Waiotahi Contractors. The project team were confident in the team's ability to deliver the physical works following their involvement in the dredging trial carried out last year.

Last month a variation to the consent was granted to allow the sediment to be removed using a cutter-suction dredge and transferred by pipeline to the containment sites. This new method was a response to concerns from the community about the risks of transporting partially de-watered sediment to the containment sites with trucks, which was the originally consented method.

With the consent now in place and the contract awarded, project manager Brendon Love said the community could expect to see works begin in the near future.

"There will be a period of a few weeks while the contractor makes sure that all the paperwork is in place. There are significant conditions attached to the consent to cover monitoring, flood management, site management and final design documentation prior to construction. So it will take a bit of time for EnviroWaste to ensure they have all the necessary plans and procedures in place before construction starts."

Mr Love said he expected to be able to start building a containment cell in January and then start dredging the first of the sediment out of the canal in the first quarter of 2017.

"It has been a significant process to date and I would like to thank in particular the Community Liaison Group and the Piripai Lands Trust, on whose land the first containment site will be constructed under the new methodology."

Auckland-based company, EnviroWaste, has significant experience in contaminated site remediation and large scale dredging contracts which are both key aspects of the project.

Mr Love said it was satisfying to be seeing progress in and around the canal.

"I think it is an exciting time for many people in the community that have been working hard to get this canal cleaned up. We have an incredibly hard-working group that come to the CLG meetings and have been through so much of the planning process with us. We also have landowners of Containment Site 2 (CS2) who are making a significant contribution to the clean-up programme so that we leave a better environment to future generations than we inherited.

"We have been talking about this project on paper for years now. I know that there was some community concern with the old method and while it has taken a considerable effort to trial a new method and vary the consents, I believe that hard work is finally paying off.

"We now have a method that meets both the project and community needs and finally we can start to see this contamination taken out of our Canal and safely stored and treated."

For more information visit www.boprc.govt.nz/kopeopeo