Ohura
In 2020 issues with drainage and culverts were a big concern in Ōhura. In 2023, although flooding was still a concern, the most salient issues regarding flooding regarded the impact of forestry on various aspects of the natural environment:
"It has a huge impact on the farmers. It impacts the pigs and deer on my farm. There’s more of them."
"My concern with forestry is that it’s taking away jobs, community, etcetera, but it’s also the environmental factor of when the trees are planted, what it actually does to the land. It makes it uninhabitable for a series of years. It’s the… it’s the look of it. It’s the backwash which causes mudslides. If all that happens behind us then I don’t know what will happen to us, we’ll be in a mudslide. After they’ve done and taken it all away."
"The impact is if they don’t get it down in time, is two of those farms back straight on to the Whanganui River, and one of the other ones is… it backs on to the Ohura River, the Heao_ River, I should say. And the Ohura and the Heao Rivers merge, and they merge right down into the Whanganui River. So if anything happens there and the trees fall into the river it just backs up. And it backs up this way. And backs all the way up to Matiere. "
Some were concerned that pine trees were being planted too close to the borders of private lands and roads:
"It’s meant to be 50 metres; they changed the law recently. All those roads that are meant to have sun during the day, all that planting is illegal. All along the roads between ten and two. And you look where they’ve killed all the grass spots, you know, where they will plant, and they’re this close to the fence! They’re making corridors you will have to drive up and in winter when it’s slushy and muddy and icy it will just make the roads more dangerous…. Who’s actually monitoring all this?"
"But who cares because we’re just a little community and no one lives here, that’s what they think. There’s just been no consideration of communities when it comes to forestry. Well, they don’t have to because they live overseas. "
The ongoing flooding risk for the area was still noted as a concern however:
"(The risk of flood) is ongoing, but forestry won’t help."
"When it rains, we have to watch the streams to make sure that the kids can get out and get home from school because we’ve got low roads on Tokirima Road. Then we’ve got the main road, State Highway 43, which has low bits which can flood."
"It’s the one river that does everybody. There’s willow crowding issues which we’re trying to get Horizons to deal with, which means the road between here and Matiere gets flooded."
"On a very bad wintery day it will also take out the road to Tokirima as well, so you can very quickly get trapped in Ōhura."
"My post box goes under quite a lot. Yeah, when it floods it will be right underneath. So that’s about what, a metre?"
"It’s climate change, though. Because of course, in summer, we’ll get a drought, and the town water supply will run out. Then what does the town do? Some people have water tanks. But in the town ship we’re on town water. But affording water tanks is a problem."
Rubbish and recycling were a concern for several participants:
"We used to have a recycling thing in Tokirima and apparently years ago it got washed away and we had organised, and they were working on it, to get another recycling place in Tokirima. Because it’s like an hour to get into town to do it and it’s only open a couple of days. And it went by the by. So that would be a really good thing to have, to be able to recycle."
'And we pay $75 for rubbish collection and we don’t get it, and we’re still charged to dump it. That is appalling. And half the time I have to bring my recycling home again because the recycling at the dump isn’t open."
"There are large dumps of rubbish in the woods and people burning rubbish. Or on the sides of the road. The sides of the road are horrendous. Bag-fulls of it. Household rubbish. "
Flooding was the most significant risk for natural disasters in Ohura and it was felt that people were generally prepared for floods, especially people who had lived there a long time.
“It’s been the number one issue for many, many years so there’s been a lot of thought and planning and funding put into managing it. This town’s pretty well resilient.”
“It’s not a very technologically advanced town so a lot of the old stuff (torches, radios) is still around. It’s also a really tight community so if we don’t have it our neighbour will.”
