Boaties are being warned to be wary of floating clumps of debris in Lake Dunstan, after recent heavy rain.
High water levels in the Shotover and Kawarau rivers have shifted deposits of silt, releasing large amounts of driftwood and other flotsam into Lake Dunstan. Napier road engineer Peter Scott took the accompanying photographs about 3.30pm yesterday, the aerial shot while flying his plane over Cromwell.''
You can see the silt line in Lake Dunstan down almost to Lowburn. It's bad at the Wanaka end of the lake, too,'' he said, Clyde Chief Fire Officer Richard Davidson said boaties should be wary of the hazard.
"It's pretty difficult to boat through. There are people getting caught in their boats on a regular basis,'' he said.
The silting had steadily got worse since the Clyde Dam was completed, in 1993, he said.
"The silt debris gets dropped out of the Shotover and the Kawarau and it meets still water at the head of Lake Dunstan. All the silt now gets dropped at Bannockburn. Fifteen years ago, it was 20m or 30m deep. Now you can walk across it.''
