What’s been happening at Wai-iti River?

Working with Taylors Contracting Ltd, we’ve recently carried out some important maintenance around the Wai-iti River.

This mostly involved the layering of willow trees and topping of overly tall trees next to the river, which reduces the risk of them falling into the channel and enhances bank stability.

At times, the works took place near the cycleway alongside the river between Hoult Valley Road and Pigeon Valley Road. We want to thank everyone for their co-operation during this time.

Under our Environmental Management Plan for River Management Activities in the Tasman District, we have historically managed 285km of the District’s rivers to minimise and prevent damage from floods and erosion.

The measures we are taking now are important – a thorough tree layering and topping run will reduce the need for intensive work in coming years and cultivate an effective buffer and filter for high flows to protect adjacent land.

We plan to carry out tree maintenance work in this river every 2 – 3 years.

This latest work follows efforts in the Wai-iti River around a year ago, which involved rock work and gravel relocation to repair flood damage caused by the August 2022 and May 2023 weather events.

Very little tree work was done at the time, as the main goal was to repair the worst of the damage. Now we are in a better position to carry out general tree maintenance work.