Climate change: is Southland ready?
When the Mataura River rose again late last month, Doreen Lee packed a bag, just in case she had to evacuate her home. In the 2020 floods about two feet of water (about 60cm) surrounded her Bangor St house in Mataura. We were probably very lucky it didnt get inside, but it was very close. Others werent as lucky, she said. Environment Southland has since spent $511,323 upgrading the Boundary Creek stop bank to the north of the town, and is in the design and tender phase for the works to improve more stop banks in Gore, Mataura, Wyndham and Waimumu. READ MORE: * Southlanders waiting days for fresh water * Weather: Hose ban coming for Invercargill as coastal Southland records the driest summer on record * Water shortage forces Colac Bay Tavern to close briefly * February 2020 flood: What will our future be with climate change? Lee said the upgrade made her feel safer, but she still worried about predictions of more big floods coming down the river, caused by climate change. In 2018 NIWA published a Southland climate change impact assessment , which says floods (characterised by the Mean Annual Flood) are expected to become larger everywhere It said by the end of the century and with increased emissions, average annual river flows are expected to increase across the region (up to 50% in the Oreti and Mataura catchments). You do worry about it. We do get a bit upset when we get heaps of rain, and they talk about the river coming up. Climate change is going to make it worse and my generation, we were unaware of the effects when we were burning coal all the time in our houses. You do feel a bit bad about it sometimes, but we didnt know any different, she said. A major climate change hui was hosted by Environment Southlands climate change sub-committee last month, attended by governance and staff members from Gore District Council, Environment Southland, Invercargill City Council, Southland District Council, Te Ao Marama Inc and Great South. People at the hui discussed everything from recycling, moving to rail to get trucks off roads, changes in agriculture and making the province self-sufficient for food security. They came together for the hui to start planning for a future and what it might be like under climate change. Climate change sub-committee chair Lyndal Ludlow said there was a willingness from everyone at the hui to make progress on the many ways the region needed to make changes to battle climate change. Theres a lot of work to be done, but its not impossible. Every one has a responsibility and even changes that people make at a personal level are important, but organisations, businesses and entities have huge responsibilities to make changes on many fronts, she said. But how big ticket items like water storage, future-proofing critical infrastructure will be paid for is unknown at this early stage. In short we dont know yet, weve got to get creative, but having a regional strategy is important because that will allow us to access significant funding to get some of the big stuff happening. It is important because our future looks different to the way we have ever faced before at a personal, business and regional level and now is the time to start making changes, she said. Water security it is set to become a big issue for Southland, and not just for farmers who irrigate. At the height of Southlands drought last summer, households had to wait three weeks for a Cleanways tanker to arrive if their water tanks ran dry, Cleanways manager Paul Esplin said. It was a matter of days away from us being restricted from taking water from the Invercargill Water Tower, and we couldnt take it from Winton or Gore, he said. Councils implemented water restrictions, which prohibited commercial users from taking water from town supplies, meant Cleanways was left with only one option Invercargills water tower. Its not the first time thats happened, and I dont think it will be the last, but it was certainly unusual because it came so late in the season, he said. The NIWA report says there will be an increase in droughts in the future, especially in the central and northern parts of the Southland region. By mid-century, the number of wet days is expected to decrease by up to 10 days across most of the region, the report says. Esplin said predictions of further droughts and water shortages were a concern, but because each season was different, it was difficult to plan for. As far as water goes, if we havent got it, we cant deliver it, its as simple as that, he said. In coastal Southland at Colac Bay, a disused rubbish dump is under threat from erosion. Deen McKay has been battling councils for several years to take action before the sea breaches the narrow strip of land between the beach and the dump and starts washing rubbish out to sea. Id say we have two years, maybe less, maybe a bit more, it depends on how many king tides and big seas we get, she said. We dont know what is in there because it was an unmonitored site, but affidavits from some locals who have lived here for a while say there is DDT, T45T, batteries who knows. Theres a lot of horrific things in there. The Southland District Council said it should have a landfill assessment report completed by late August-early September, and site inspections were completed about a week ago. In a press release in April it said groundwater tests from the Colac Bay/Oraka area had not raised any major concerns, and no pesticides or herbicides had been detected. The NIWA report says changes in sea level-rise are expected to be between 0.2-0.3 m by 2040 and increasing to 0.4-0.9 m by 2090, and moderate and nuisance coastal flooding events will become even more common, occurring several times a year. Its absolutely a concern. Weve already lost the road and the people living along the foreshore are very worried about it, McKay said. We have a pod of endangered Hectors Dolphins in the bay that have made their home here, and we dont want them to be swimming around in rubbish if the sea gets into the dump, she said. Environment Southland will host a visit from Dr Rod Carr, the Chairperson of He Pou a Rangi, the Climate Commission, next month, and the next step after the climate hui is to prepare a regional climate strategy plan for Southland.