Friday, January 29, 2010
Proposals from council officers will be put to Hutt City and Greater Wellington Regional Councils to provide funding for an additional $2 million to complete the $20 million project currently underway on Lower Hutt’s Waiwhetu Stream.
“We are past the halfway stage of what is an important project for Waiwhetu residents and the wider Hutt City community,” Hutt City’s chief executive Tony Stallinger said.
“This project is complex, given that we are managing a clean up of New Zealand’s most polluted stream and doing flood protection works at the same time.
“As the project has progressed we have uncovered more about the extent of the works needed to complete this which, now means we have to go back to our councils to seek approval for the additional funding. We are confident that we now fully understand the extent of the works necessary to complete this project,” Tony Stallinger said.
Greater Wellington Regional Council chief executive David Benham said that in making the recommendations to both councils, officers did not believe that stopping the project now was a viable option, although that decision was for councillors to make.
“The Waiwhetu Stream clean up will remove the contaminated sediment from the stream bed for safe disposal and the channel widening and deepening will lower flood levels, benefiting many of the neighbours of the Waiwhetu and Awamutu Streams. Our aim is to avoid a repeat of the flood damage wrought on this community as recently as February 2004,” David Benham said.
Hutt City Council is being asked to provide an additional $1,125,000 to complete the clean up of the stream’s lower reaches. Greater Wellington Regional Council is being asked to provide an extra $870,000 to complete flood protection improvement works. The Waiwhetu Stream project has to date been jointly funded by Hutt City, Greater Wellington Regional Council and the Ministry for the Environment.