AECOM Highway Project Wins NZ Environmental Excellence Award

AECOM Highway Project Wins NZ Environmental Excellence Award

A highway upgrade project led by professional technical services consultancy AECOM that transformed a lighthouse at the end of a dusty road into one of New Zealand’s most spectacular sites has been honoured for environmental excellence.

The NZ$19m Healing Te Rerenga Wairua – Cape Reinga Upgrade at the tip of the north island has won the 2011 Arthur Mead Environment and Sustainability Award in the large projects category.

The prestigious Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand award honours the project’s significant contribution to the preservation, conservation and improvement of the environment.

AECOM, in partnership with the New Zealand Transport Agency and Department of Conservation, upgraded the road and roadside leading to Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Reinga), a sacred Maori site and one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations attracting 150,000 people each year.

The project involved sealing and widening the final 19-kilometres of State Highway One, building ecologically sensitive visitor facilities, car parking and information sites along the route and a purpose-built nursery that provided 300,000 plants grown from seeds collected in the area.

AECOM project manager Terry Buckley said their extensive services included investigation geotechnical engineering, environmentally sustainable design, roading, construction management, and stormwater and civil design that respected the area’s rare and unique plants and animals.

“We also restored the cape to its natural state as much as possible by clearing growth, old buildings, roads and carparks and then re-contouring the land, laying new soil and replanting thousands of trees,” Mr Buckley said.

The Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand said it was impressed by the substantial efforts to involve the community in all phases of the highway improvement and the demonstrated understanding of the need to enhance and protect the environment.

The project was the first of its kind in New Zealand where training and work experience for local people was a condition of the construction contract, resulting in a construction apprenticeship scheme with external training programmes that attracted 14 people.

Residents were employed in construction and earthworks at the site that included laying 17,000 square metres of coconut matting to control soil erosion. They helped gather seeds for the nursery and some received plant propagation training and mentoring from the Department of Conservation.

“The onsite nursery has been a huge success, saving more than $500,000 and providing a source of employment for local people. Once the revegetation is complete it will continue as a commercial operation in its own right, “ Mr Buckley said.

“The outcome of this highly successful project will have a profoundly positive and lasting impact on the community, the environment and the region as a whole.”

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