Long, wet wait ahead for Mt Roskill residents

Plans to reduce the flood risk to parts of Mt Roskill have become hamstrung and will likely take decades to implement, Auckland City Council has admitted.

Manager of water and landfill operations at the council, Grant Ockleston, says the biggest flood navigation project ever undertaken by the council has faced problems since it began in 2001.

Ockleston says it will cost tens of millions of dollars to fix the flooding, which has been a major problem in the past around parts of Oakley Creek.

“It is a very complicated matter and it is something that will take around 15 to 20 years to overcome.

“We have to build very sophisticated, very large mathematical models describing the land, the ground water and how the storm water will flow over the land. We’ve had problems developing a model for this specific catchment,” says Ockleston.

He says it will require a “significant solution” to make all the properties in the region safe and minimise flooding to acceptable levels.

“As soon as it’s done we will have a good understanding of the flood hazards to this catchment and the likely solutions, and then we will be able to start putting the recommended works into our programme,” says Ockleston.

Two early attempts to build a model for the Oakley Creek catchment failed, but a third model should be finished by the end of this year, he says.

Residents are becoming fed up waiting for the council to fix the problem.

Local resident Bryan Mehaffy, who made a presentation to the local community board in 2006 regarding flooding in Oakley Creek, says nothing has been done since.

“All Auckland City Council is doing is ignoring the problem,  and the community board hasn’t done anything as a response to my presentation,” says Mehaffy.

He suggested the public at least be notified by warning signs when the creek is flooded.

“But two years later, there are still no signs.

“Flooding is still a major problem in Oakley Creek. I have seen a number of flooding [incidents] over the years. Once, the bottom level of a two-storey house was completely covered in a pond of water,” says Mehaffy.

Wendy John, a member of the Friends of Oakley Creek, has tried to improve the current situation by applying natural solutions to the creek and catchment area.

She says the Government needs to “put more wetlands in and use more natural processes for managing stormwater.

“They need to change the district plan so that the amount of impermeable surfaces are reduced.”

Joshua Taylor, member of the local community board, says storm water flooding has been one of the major issues in Mt Roskill for the past 50 years.

“The Mt Roskill Community Board is regularly contacted by residents regarding flooding in the Oakley Creek area adjacent to Sandringham Road,”  he says.

Local MP Phil Goff agrees flooding has always been a problem in parts of Mt Roskill due to its low-lying position.

But Auckland’s Deputy Mayor David Hay says he does not believe that flooding is a major concern.

“The flooding was a problem 50 to 30 years ago, but it is not a significant issue any longer,” he says.

It is believed there are about 1250 homes that are below the “acceptable” level for flood risk in Auckland.