Opinion: Open dialogue needed on flooding in Reporoa

Aerial view of the Waikato River near Reporoa. Photo / Andrew Warner

Comment: Floods are affecting Reporoa farmers financially and emotionally, writes Federated Farmers Rotorua-Taupo Dairy chairman Colin Guyton

Between Rotorua and Taupo is Reporoa.

It's a close-knit community filled with characters and a recreational outdoors like no other.

It's also an area with farmland experiencing flooding outside of what locals should expect - let alone plan for.

The Waikato River, at times, is reaching levels higher than usual and that can be put down to several things, such as more rainfall, drains being clogged, and the river being kept at a high level by the local power company's management of their dams.

Environment Waikato field staff and Rotorua Lakes Council staff are working though the issues, but everyone who uses the Waikato River should be aware of this problem because the flooding is having devastating effects.

In the last two years some farmers have been flooded five times and, depending on how long the water stays, a significant area of grazing land has become unavailable and damaged.

Read more from Federated Farmers here.

This is having a terrible impact on people's mental health and their financial wellbeing.

The thing is – the flooding is a relatively new event, so when people plan what they hope to achieve on their farms, the flooding has significantly disrupted their plans.

Farmers are documenting what is happening to their land and are working on getting a resolution.

Federated Farmers has tried using the review process of the resource consent held by Mercury Energy which uses the river to generate power, but wasn't successful.

Feds and its local members have achieved a lot, supported by our local Lakes Council and Environment Waikato staff who understand the situation.

More has to be done. There has to be more open dialogue – and it has to be open to public scrutiny.

People shouldn't be taking financial losses.