Keith Lynch05:00, Jun 07 2021
GEORGE HEARD/STUFF
Drone footage shows full extent of the damage to the Waiho Bridge, near Franz Josef on the West Coast, in March 2019.
New maps that show the precise makeup of the West Coast, warts and all, have been released. They can be used for everything from farming to engineering. KEITH LYNCH reports. They are called LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) maps, and they can be used to create a picture of the “bare” earth. In 2018, a Government initiative made millions of dollars available to better map regional New Zealand. The first batch of maps, showing the West Coast, has now been released. More are expected to follow soon. This is what is going on.
GEORGE HEARD/STUFF
Drone footage shows full extent of the damage to the Waiho Bridge, near Franz Josef on the West Coast, in March 2019.
A proposal to buy out flood-prone farming land at Franz Josef and move the state highway away from the Waiho River will be put before the Government. The West Coast Regional Council sees the project as a longer term solution to the town’s hazards than building more stopbanks. It would involve 2500 hectares of private land with a capital value of $30 million. The Government announced on Wednesday that it would release $12m for new stopbanks along the northern banks of the flood-prone Waiho River.
About $24m was initially granted through the Government’s provincial growth fund in July 2020 to upgrade both the northern and southern stopbanks, but Labour put the money on hold while it reviewed the project after last year’s general election. The West Coast Regional Council has said the flood wall project would buy the glacier town time to eventually migrate northwards to Lake Mapourika – away from the river and the Alpine Fault it perches on – because stopbanks were not a long-term solution.
Dean Kozanic/Stuff
Franz Josef has suffered a huge downturn in its tourist industry due to the Covid-19 pandemic