Silt removal is continuing at pace. Ten contractors have collected about 160,000 cubic meters of silt in Hawke’s Bay. Around 900 truckloads of silt per day are being offloaded at the region's six deposit sites. In addition there are also five private contractors coordinating orchard collection through to deposit sites.

Darren de Klerk, Silt Recovery Taskforce Lead says “We have 301 jobs logged for an estimated 1,000,000 cubic meters of silt to be collected. We estimate this is 25% of the silt to be collected.”

Mr de Klerk noted 18 jobs have been completed, 17 in progress, 100 assessed, and 166 needing assessment. There are six deposit sites currently operating with four new sites to become operational in the next month.

To help those with waste to be collected, Hawke's Bay Regional Council is standing up a small team to get back to people who have filed a ticket and are wondering about the status of their request for silt and other waste removal.

Starting next week, people will be able to contact the team through a dedicated email address (operations@hbrc.govt.nz) or ring the 0800 108 838 number and the customer experience team will pass on an info ticket to the team for response.

Meanwhile, the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) is scoping a variety of Orders in Council (OiC) that could support cyclone recovery efforts by councils and the community. An OiC is a mechanism that allows the Government to amend legislation in response to requests from the community and local government on issues they are facing as they recover from the impacts of the severe weather.

Despite their name, Orders in Council are not made by local councils - they are made by the Minister who is responsible for the legislation being amended. 

MfE has been liaising with councils (including the Regional Council) in the North Island affected by severe weather. Orders that MfE officials are currently scoping include:

• Assisting waste management by:
  • Minimising barriers to the efficient clean up and disposal of waste, debris and silt
  • Selecting sites to deposit contaminated waste and silt
• Fast tracking the repair and restoration of significant infrastructure like roads, powerlines and pipes, and streamline planning requirements while ensuring infrastructure is ‘built back better’ where possible
• Enabling urban landowners and occupiers to carry out certain emergency works to help them recover and rebuild
• Provision of temporary housing by removing barriers that might prevent this
• Altering existing planning requirements which may include:
  • Relaxing resource consent conditions for users who are unable to comply with existing conditions.
  • Temporarily waiving the requirements to exclude livestock from waterways to recognise the damage the severe weather has caused to fencing.
  • Enabling district or regional plans to be quickly amended to allow for recovery activities.

A number of other government ministries and ministers are also considering potential OiC to support recovery efforts in the North Island.

© Scoop Media