Waimak Irrigation Dam

Ray from Eyrewell Forest

Hi to all the 2000 of us that live between Wrights Road and the one lane bridge on South Eyre Road. For over 6 years now Waimak Irrigation Limited WIL have been trying to build a 1 Km square 13 M high above ground water storage pond that contains 8.2 million cubic metres of water. The embankments of this structure will be dirt, lined with a 1.5mm plastic lining. They would have us believe that this will never fail!! However what about the overdue Alpine Fault? Also they say via experts they have engaged from GNS Wellington that " the ground has not been disturbed for 18,00 years, well hey what about the Greendale fault, just across the river, again ground that has not been disturbed for 18,000 years which opened up 1 meter and moved laterally by 5 metres in recent earthquake activety.These GNS experts also came up with an EEP an Emergency Evacuation Plan that stated evacuation was possible on paper roads that simply do not exist, there is only one way to escape this and that would be down South Eyre Road and over the one lane bridge, but guess where they propose to de water this dam-down the Eyre River, yes if it takes out the one lane bridge we are trapped! The attached document that arrived in my mailbox some 6 years ago, off handedly states that in a failure of this dam there will be "only a few fatalities" how obnoxious is this. Apparently 6 inches of fast running water will knock you off your feet I have observed toddlers playing in paddocks and met a guy more or less permanently hooked up to a dialysis machine who would not stand a chance if this thing let go.Here in Downs road we would have 1.2 Meters of water. We do not need this in our community so insist that they either dig a hole or move it nearer to the Waimak river so if it lets go the water merely goes back into the river.In the intervening 6 years there have been constructed 23 on farm storage ponds of only a permitted 3Metres high, if one of these lets go people will only get their feet wet!.This is written out of concern for the safety of people living in this area.

WILL first doco table of fatalities.pdf Download View