Lake continues to drop

Lake Wakatipu is continuing to drop and the Otago Regional Council is not forecasting any problems with further rain in the catchment tomorrow night and Friday.

"The advisory we have received from the ORC is telling us the moderate rain in the forecast will act to slow down the drop in levels but will not create any issues," Queenstown Lakes District Council Mayor Clive Geddes said.

Since the lake peaked on Saturday it had now dropped 24cm. It would need to fall a further 44cm to drop below the first flood alert level at 310.8m.

"The regional council is projecting we should get back to that level early next week, possibly by Tuesday,' Mr Geddes said.

Until the lake reached that level both councils would continue to be at a high level of preparedness.

"We want to get the central business district back to normal as quickly as possible, as soon as we can," Mr Geddes said.

The council had produced a clean-up management plan which would swing into place as soon as the level had dropped out of the warning zone.

"What we have been able to do is re-open all streets in the CBD and for our business community, it's very much back to business as usual," Mr Geddes said.

It would make no sense at all for the council to remove flood protection work too early in the piece and then find itself re-instating that infrastructure in a few days time, at additional cost.

It was hoped clean-up could get underway from Tuesday and would include the foreshores of Kingston, Glenorchy and Wanaka.

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement