The Motueka River following the two recent flooding events. Photo: SUPPLIED
Flood damaged river stopbanks are being urgently repaired by Tasman District Council ahead of more wet weather that was forecast for the end of the month.
The region has been slammed with two major floods in the past two weeks and Earth Sciences New Zealand is forecasting more wet weather for later in July and into early August.
The council's river manager David Arseneau told RNZ a key priority was fixing an area of stopbank at the top of the Wai-iti River.
"The whole stopbank just got scoured out over about 150 metres or so, we are actively out there rebuilding firstly the ground that the stopbank used to be on, and then the stopbank - before the next weather event comes in," he said.
Council workers had been out in boats surveying the river network and assessing the damage.
Another area that had been hit was on the Motueka River around Peach Island, where the stopbanks overtopped.
The Motueka River in flood. Photo: SUPPLIED
"They've survived and stood up. So right now we are planning out what that repair job looks like and also looking forward to an upgrade and strengthening... it's the same with the Brooklyn stop banks as well," he said.
In many areas of the Tasman District, rivers have massively widened and realigned through paddocks and farms, Arseneau said.
"In the short term we are just not going to be able to solve those issues on any kind of scale before the next flood or the flood after that.
"It's a multi-year recovery that we are looking at for property damage and the impacts on our rural communities."
The rivers had completely changed, he said.
"They are no longer the rivers they were three or four weeks ago. When big events like this come along, the rivers flex, adapt and change... then they'll hopefully be relatively stable for a few decades."
The Wai-iti River in recent days. Photo: SUPPLIED
The Nelson Tasman region had begun transitioning from a state of emergency into recovery mode.
As of Wednesday, 10 homes have been red stickered, 42 yellow stickered and 48 white stickered, which meant further assessment was needed.
Nelson Tasman Civil Defence is providing accommodation for 12 people following both floods.
Tasman Mayor Tim King told Morning Report it was too soon to estimate the cost of repairing the flood-damaged region.
King expected the repair bill would be extensive.
"It's going to be tens of millions of dollars in both roading and rural infrastructure and then of course there's the massive amount of damage on private property, which I guess partly will be covered by insurance in many cases but a lot of it won't be.
"So it's very difficult to guess-timate a figure but it's going to be very large and we will need continued government support."
King said there was still 50 roads either closed or restricted but state highways were now open in Tasman.
He said some families and properties were still isolated and the priority during upcoming fine weather was to get roads open and restore infrastructure.
King said the long-range forecast was not looking good so recovery and repair work would be started as soon as possible.
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