Motueka Stopbank Refurbishment

Project Info

Client: Tasman District Council

Collaborators: Iwi, neighbouring landowners

Project Description

KEY PROJECT CHALLENGES

• Flood management during construction
• Liaison with local iwi
• Liaison with landowners
• Dust control
• Time management

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
Improving Community Resilience. This work helped to ensure the system is capable of safely and reliably containing a 2% Annual Exceedance Probability event (AEP, or 1-in-50-year flood).

Taylors worked closely with several different landowners, managing access to land around farm activities such as spraying and stock movements.

Taylors Contracting’s Andrew Plunkett discusses the project’s key challenges and the creative solutions that the Taylors team devised to overcome them.

Flood management during construction
“Taylors needed to have stringent Trigger Action Response Plans in place and closely monitor Motueka River levels as we didn’t want to have sections of the stopbank open when a flood event was in full swing.

Liaison with local iwi
“We kept in close communication with local iwi over potential known sites for artefacts and ensured that we adhered to protocols relating to stopping work if unexpected or suspected artefacts were unearthed.

Liaison with landowners
“We worked closely with several different landowners, managing access to land around farm activities such as spraying and stock movements.”
Taylors supplied feed to some farmers as a result of loss of stock feed due to trucks crossing paddocks.

Time management
There were up to 13 road trucks carting fill from Tasman View Rd (TVR) to Motueka/Riwaka. “This required precise time management so that trucks were not ‘queuing’ at the load site (TVR) or the dump site (stopbanks).”

Technology
“Taylors Contracting has a Broad toolkit and utilises specialised tools combined with the right operators and technicians with high expertise. We used Trimble GPS Machine Controls to enable our operators to complete earthworks precisely to the client’s design tolerances i.e. our excavators and bulldozers didn’t put too much or too little earth where it needed to be. We delivered precision through a combination of our in-house survey department technicians and specialised earthmoving equipment. In this case, our use of the tri-drum roller (pictured on page 17) as opposed to a single-drum roller allowed for heavier compaction and was more effective in the tight site restraints.

Win:win
“Taylors was able to source the fill for the stopbanks project from its Tasman View Road site. “This provided a win:win for the developer of that land, and the Tasman District Council by further developing the public road for future development in the area.”