Flow Resumes to Ōpunakē Lake

Following advice from engineering consultants WSP, the process for refilling Ōpunakē Lake began yesterday (Sunday 29 Oct), with the gates being opened at the weir near the Waiaua Bridge at SH45.

South Taranaki District Council (STDC) property and facilities manager Phil Waite says people will start to see the lake level rise slowly over the next few days.

“The refilling process will be managed over the coming weeks with the first part to “flush” the canal. As the water level rises it will flow over the spillway on the eastern side of the Lake in an effort to clean some of it, before the gate at the southern end of the Lake is opened. This will allow the water to eventually flow through the generation plant and out to sea via the channel at Ōpunakē Beach, for which it was originally designed.”

Phil says it will be good to see the water flowing back into the Lake after it was stopped following the February 2022 storm, where a large part of the embankment between the Lake and Waiaua River failed.

“We lowered the lake level as we were initially concerned that further pressure on the riverbank could result in a breach of the lake wall, which would drain the Lake into the River,” says Phil.

During the February storms serious erosion also occurred on other sections of the Waiaua River, particularly around the Ōpunakē Transfer Station and near Orimupiko Urupā.

The Council subsequently commissioned engineers (WSP) to design riverbank protection works using rock to repair the affected sections of riverbank and initial discussions have been held with some of the stakeholders affected by the erosion.