Hatea River channel dredging to start

Dredging to remove thousands of tonnes of built-up silt from about 4.5 kilometres of Whangarei’s Hatea River channel - including part of the Town Basin marina channel - is due to begin within days (subs: Monday Oct 13).

The Whangarei District Council has resource consent from the Northland Regional Council (NRC) to dredge during daylight until 20 December and contractors using a barge-mounted digger and a support tug are expected to start work early next week.

Ian Niblock, the NRC’s Regional Harbourmaster/Maritime Senior Programme Manager, says roughly 10,000 cubic metres is expected to be dredged along the stretch of river from Port Whangarei into the Town Basin marina channel.

Mr Niblock says first few hundred metres of the channel to be dredged has been temporarily marked with 40mm grey plastic pipes and a warning ‘Notice to Mariners’ issued.

“The dredger is fairly restricted in its ability to manoeuvre and we’re advising people to give it as wide a berth as possible. For safety reasons we’re also recommending boaties don’t transit the area at night until the dredging is finished.”

Mr Niblock says the silt removal project is expected to cost about $300,000 in total, with dredgings to be deposited at the nearby former Pohe Island landfill site.

Meanwhile, the Regional Council has placed an order with a Ruawai-based company for the buoys and markers needed as part of a $100,000 upgrade of navigation markers in the area.

The upgrade includes buoys and beacons, associated mooring systems and lights and all going well the NRC hopes to have most of it installed by mid-December.

Of the total $400,000 cost of both the dredging and navigation marker upgrades, $300,000 will come from ratepayers and $100,000 from user charges.