TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS BOARD OF INQUIRY · 2019. 4. 6. · We now resume in our new venue, 10 the hearing. Have we got a hearing schedule because I am not sure who we have got

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

BOARD OF INQUIRY

Ara Tūhono - Pūhoi to Wellsford

Road of National Significance:

Pūhoi to Warkworth Section Proposal

HEARING at

ASCENSION WINE ESTATE, MATAKANA, AUCKLAND

on 29 April 2014

BOARD OF INQUIRY:

The Honourable John Priestley CNZM QC (Chairperson)

David Chandler (Board Member)

Michael Parsonson (Board Member)

Bronwyn Hunt (Board Member)

Alan Withy (Board Member)

Page 886

Ascension Vineyard, Auckland 29.04.14

APPEARANCES

<GINA MAREE MOSES-TE KANI, affirmed [10.03 am] ....................... 887

<EXAMINATION BY MS BROSNAHAN [10.03 am] ..................... 887

<CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR DILLON [10.12 am] ................ 891 5

<CROSS EXAMINATION BY MS HUNT [10.16 am] ..................... 893

<THE WITNESS WITHDREW [10.29 am] ....................................... 897

<RODNEY CLOUGH, affirmed [10.31 am] ............................................... 898

<EXAMINATION BY MS BROSNAHAN [10.31 am] ..................... 898 10

<CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR DILLON [10.34 am] ................ 900

<THE WITNESS WITHDREW [11.00 am] ....................................... 910

<TIMOTHY SIMON RICHMOND FISHER, affirmed [2.01 pm] .......... 931

<EXAMINATION BY MS BROSNAHAN [2.01 pm] ...................... 931 15

<CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR CIVIL [3.21 pm] ....................... 963

<CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS VELLA [4.23 pm] .................... 979

<RE-EXAMINATION BY MS BROSNAHAN [5.32 pm] .............. 1003

<THE WITNESS WITHDREW [5.46 pm] ....................................... 1007

20

Page 887


[10.01 am]

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Good morning tena koutou. At this point

before we start our formal hearing, I am handing over to the Kaumatua

for karakia. 5

KARAKIA

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, very much. We now resume in our new venue,

the hearing. Have we got a hearing schedule because I am not sure 10

who we have got first, is it lurking here somewhere, oh, here it is. And

I think Ms Brosnahan you are going to call to give what is largely

uncontested cultural evidence and Gina Moses-Te Kani, is that right?

MS BROSNAHAN: Mrs Moses-Te Kani. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Is that how we are going to go?

MS BROSNAHAN: Yes, sir.

20

CHAIRPERSON: Right, and we have got the witness box over there this time,

just to confuse everybody.

MS BROSNAHAN: Excellent.

25

<GINA MAREE MOSES-TE KANI, affirmed [10.03 am]

<EXAMINATION BY MS BROSNAHAN [10.03 am]

MS BROSNAHAN: Can you please confirm that your full name is Gina 30

Maree Moses-Te Kani?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: I can.

MS BROSNAHAN: And that you have the role and experience set out in 35

paragraphs 2 to 3 of your evidence-in-chief?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Yes, indeed.

MS BROSNAHAN: You have prepared one statement of evidence-in-chief 40

dated the 23rd

January 2014?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Correct.

MS BROSNAHAN: And do you have any corrections to make to that? 45

Page 888


MS MOSES-TE KANI: No, I don’t.

MS BROSNAHAN: Can you please confirm for the Board that your evidence

is true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?

5

MS MOSES-TE KANI: I do.

MS BROSNAHAN: Excellent. Now a couple of questions. Early in the

Hearing the Board was interested in what would happen to the kauri

trees that are removed for the project. Can you comment at all on that 10

for the Board?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: There are a range of projects that we have with NZTA

which didn’t clearly fit within the RMA process, and one of them is

cultural harvest and the use of not just kauri trees but actually anything 15

that has been removed from within the designation. So our role will be

to facilitate the iwi and hapu and to have access to that resource.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thanks. Now another matter that came up in the first

couple of weeks of the hearing was with respect to proposed 20

designation condition 28 which provides for a connection between

Te Koroto and Ngapa o Te Hema ka Hawia, to be maintained where

practicable.

Now Commissioner Hunt asked about the words, where practicable. 25

Would you be able to explain that condition and perhaps what those

words might mean?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: So firstly, Te Koroto is a wahi tapu Island that is

actually outside of the designation and it is south of the tunnel, so when 30

you are coming – when you are heading north before you enter the

tunnels on the right hand side in the Waiwera Estuary, is Te Koroto,

which is actually owned by DOC and is called “Te Hamara’s Islands”.

For us when we were working on Ngapa o Te Hema Tauhia we have 35

developed a cultural landscape so obviously for iwi, the world isn’t

dots, it’s not whare it is actually the whole environment, so for us it is

important that Te Koroto connected to Ngapa o Te Hemara Tauhia

inside the designation and also the broader landscape which covers

from Waiwera to Pūhoi to Mahurangi. 40

[10.06 am]

So, as far as that condition is related, again it’s one of those projects

that we’ve already started with the NZTA. Ara Tūhono Hokai Nuku 45

gave the name Ara Tūhono to this project to the whole stretch of the

Page 889


road and to acknowledge that we wanted to start with pou whenua on

the southern side of the tunnels to acknowledge first the [Maori

content 0.25] and the journey of Ara Tūhono.

So that condition relates particularly to how we connect our cultural 5

footprint and one of the key things for us is that our cultural footprint

will be through pou whenua or using urban and landscape design to

show this is a place than our tupuna lived.

MS BROSNAHAN: Then one of the other points of discussion that’s come up 10

in the first two weeks is about the cultural pathway that’s indicated in

figure 1 of your assessment. Can you talk a little bit about that?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: So Te Haurahi o Kahaumatamoemoe acknowledges

the pathway from coast to coast. So obviously it’s quite thin area coast to 15

coast and we have different iwi and hapu on each side of the coast who

are all partners of Hokai Nuku and as you go from one supermarket to

the next supermarket or from one family member to the next family

member you have some traditional pathways of which Te Haurahi o

Kahaumatamoemoe is. 20

For us it’s important to acknowledge – actually it’s opportunity to

acknowledge our ancestors through the pathway, through actually Ara

Tūhono and so for particularly Kahaumatamoemoe we wanted to

acknowledge that in the entranceway of Warkworth. The Pūhoi sector is 25

largely for us the area of Te Hemara Tauhia and so we didn’t want to

confuse those things. We want to acknowledge both the Pūhoi

entranceway and the Warkworth entranceway and for us symbolically

acknowledging that pathway would be at Warkworth.

30

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you, can you please - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Would that acknowledgement be at the two proposed, or

the start and the finish of the proposed motorway rather than in the

region of where the ancestral pathway actually might have been. Is that 35

what you’re saying?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And that way of marking is preferable culturally because? 40

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Because we are very protective of our cultural

landscape.

We do not want to have public exposure or access to our taonga in 45

particular. So we like to acknowledge it but we don’t necessarily like

to take people there directly. So yes, it’s more of a spiritual element

Page 890


than a physical on the landscape element. For us roadways cause

damage to our landscape and we want to minimise that rather than add

more roadways to it.

CHAIRPERSON: The current state highway 1 presumably at some point also 5

crosses the ancestral pathway which it has for decades.

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And presumably it had the potential to cause the cultural 10

damage to which you have referred. You’re not seeking any similar

acknowledgment at any point along the old route or the current route

perhaps I should call it?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: To be honest we did discuss that but we thought the 15

opportunity is Hokai Nuku as you will have demonstrated through the

powhiri is into partnership.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

20

MS MOSES-TE KANI: And we thought the opportunity to work with not

NZTA but actually Auckland Council in the entranceways of both

Pūhoi and Warkworth and that would be a more appropriate

acknowledgment which we could do on state highway 1, but we

thought actually the opportunity is with this new project. 25

CHAIRPERSON: And this is not designed as an intrusive question but this is

a pathway running from coast to coast, approximate terms east west.

And of course as you’ll know from iwi history there’s been an awful lot

of movements north south from the Northland peninsula to the 30

Auckland isthmus and vice versa. Without necessarily specifying it, is

this ancestral pathway of greater cultural significance to some of the

iwi under the Hokai Nuku umbrella than to others?

[10.11 am] 35

MS MOSES-TE KANI: The Pūhoi to Warkworth area is largely the concern

of Ngati Rongo and Ngati Manuhiri. The way Hokai Nuku works

though is fully as a collective.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Which is why we have our northern hapu supporting

us today.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

Page 891


MS MOSES-TE KANI: So even though that might be the domain of particular

iwi and hapu Hokai Nuku like to support them collectively.

CHAIRPERSON: The importance of it is acknowledged by all iwi. 5

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Yes it is.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Yes, Ms Brosnahan.

10

MS BROSNAHAN: Can you answer any further questions from the Board or

from my friends?

CHAIRPERSON: All right well I think we might get Mr Dillon – has anyone

other than Mr Dillon indicated they want to cross-examine this 15

witness?

MS BROSNAHAN: No, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Right, the floor’s yours and then the Board will come back 20

in.

<CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR DILLON [10.12 am]

MR DILLON: Good morning. I actually want to question you about two of 25

the issues that we’ve just been discussing. The first is this coast to

coast pathway which is now on the screen. As I understand your

answer you will talking about acknowledging the existence of it as

opposed to making physical provision for the continued availability of

people to cross what will end up as a four-lane motorway in the event 30

that the proposal is accepted. Do I get your answer correct?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: That is correct, yes.

MR DILLON: So you’re not looking to preserve the pathway in a physical 35

sense at all?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: No, we’re not.

MR DILLON: Why is that? 40

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Again what I was saying before is that any pathways

on the whenua – so our traditional practice is very different from public

access.

45

Page 892


MR DILLON: So you’d see this pathway as sufficiently specific to local iwi

not to wish to facilitate public access to any sections of it.

MS MOSES-TE KANI: That is correct.

5

MR DILLON: So to that extent you would be opposed to for instance my

client Asia Pacific’s proposal to facilitate public access across sections

of the proposal and particularly for instance where you could cross east

to west across the motorway?

10

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Hokai Nuku hasn’t been presented with your proposal

so the members themselves haven’t been able to make a comment so

that would be my first thing, but generally any expansion of roadways

within our cultural footprint goes against our values of Kaitiakitanga

and protecting our history and whakapapa. 15

MR DILLON: The principle relevant proposal for my client is that there be a

public access pedestrian and cycleway along beside and together with

the motorway proposal. So it would be part of the deal if you like.

Would you be able to comment on that in terms of your perspective? 20

MS MOSES-TE KANI: So anything in Pūhoi from the tunnels and through

Pūhoi we would be opposed to any expansion of the roadway even if it

is a cycleway to the side. It’s a very narrow area which we have

worked carefully with the engineers to avoid to pa environments. 25

However, the road is going through our settlement area and any

expansion of that in any way would be against our values.

MR DILLON: You don’t see that that is actually being something that would

be available to the iwi as well, because it would be publicly available? 30

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Our desire is to work with NZTA to facilitate access

for iwi people to our cultural areas, but not for public access.

MR DILLON: The other area was the connection between the two pa sites 35

which were identified in paragraph 29 of your evidence. Again is that

in the same character – it is if you like not a physical connection that

you’re looking to preserve, but rather the spiritual connection

principally and really exclusively for iwi as opposed to public access?

40

MS MOSES-TE KANI: So we are hoping for our physical connection to be

retained for those two pa as well. One of the pa environments is

outside of the designation which is a disappointment to us. I know it’s

to protect that pa environment but it is a pristine environment and we

wanted to encourage the NZTA to protect that. So we’re working 45

directly with NZTA for that. We do not want public access in that

Page 893


environment. We want to protect it and preserve it as best we can, but

we do want access for iwi people to retain their own cultural

connections and knowledge.

[10.16 am] 5

MR DILLON: Thank you. No further questions, thank you, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, does anyone else what to cross-examine this

witness before the Board, all right, Mr Withy, no? 10

MR WITHY: (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE).

<CROSS EXAMINATION BY MS HUNT [10.16 am]

15

MS HUNT: Has there been access going to Hemara’s Pa yet, and if not, what

sort of progress is there to gain access to it?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: So we have recently gained access, the NZTA have

purchased the property. We had an arrangement with the NZTA that 20

Hokai Nuku were to be the first to work on the area, and I have begun

that process.

In particular, the relationship with the current now previous landowner,

now tenant, for us it is an important relationship as she holds cultural 25

knowledge from her own perspective having lived there since 1947,

you know, as a child. We are working with NZTA to have a positive

handover in that relationship between the iwi and the tenant, and for

there to be a reconciliation for a family that has been affected by this

development for 18 years. 30

MS HUNT: And are there any specific arrangements in place for the cultural

harvest of taonga species and in particular, the kauri stand?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: We haven’t got a policy agreement with the NZTA 35

but we do have an awesome MOU which is signed at a high level and

that is specified in that agreement and has been all along in our

relationship. We don’t see any barriers to that happening.

MS HUNT: Thank you. Has there been any thought about the iwi supplying 40

the planting that is required for the urban landscaping?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Indeed we have. We have had some long

consideration about that. Actually two of our iwi, have already been

involved in nursery work before, of course there will be millions of 45

plants required for this project, so we are very aware of that. The iwi

Page 894


are also involved in the restoration of Kaipara Harbour which again, is

another project that requires millions of plants. We see this as an

opportunity not just for Hokai Nuku but for our members to facilitate

their engagement in active, kaitiakitanga of these places.

5

MS HUNT: Does the iwi within Hokai Nuku have current environmental

management plans in place?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: They do to different degrees. Essentially we are hapu

focused at the Hokai Nuku level so even though we have members of 10

Ngati Whatua who are the iwi, we are focused very much at the hapu

level of the people on the whenua themselves who don’t have iwi

management plans, but do come under the iwi plan.

MS HUNT: Kia ora. 15

CHAIRPERSON: This reference made by Ms Hunt to Hamara’s Pa, can you,

and I appreciate it is outside the designation area, but it could be a

useful pointer to other things which may be discovered, can you give us

any information over historical natures to whether this was a part of 20

permanent settlement or whether it was seasonal settlement only, and I

am thinking of its closeness to the Pūhoi inlets?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: We are doing that research right now as part of the

cultural landscape. It does appear to be seasonal of nature, the Pa 25

probably in particular looks like it was lived in and had garden sites.

However, this is really new and early in our investigation of this

information.

Te Hemara Tauhia had a broad area of influence and his people, and 30

these are generally seasonal return spots rather than the main

occupation which is historically, his main occupation was more coastal.

[10.21 am]

35

CHAIRPERSON: All right. The issue of kaimoana is always complex and

you will know that there is on the Mahurangi harbour, several quite

large tracks which are dedicated to oyster farming as I understand it.

Is there any traditional kaimoana gathering in the Mahurangi Harbour 40

or catchment at the moment, and we are asking this question because of

sedimentation risks and pollution risks?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: To our understanding, there is limited cultural harvest

in the Mahurangi, obviously if you have been to Kaipara and seen what 45

a gem that is and also for those of you staying at Omahau, you will

Page 895


understand why Mahurangi isn’t the preference, the preferred spot at

the moment.

However, even with that mind, further damage to that taonga would be

of great concern to us. 5

CHAIRPERSON: I said at the powhiri at Silverdale three or four weeks ago,

that one of the very encouraging things was the degree of consultation

and joint effort which there had been between the Transport Authority

and Hokai Nuku at the early stages. 10

Has there been to the best you can, some thought given or investigation

into whether there are any urupa burial sites along the designation

which might be there but which might require further investigation?

15

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Yes, we have considered that deeply and to our

knowledge we have actually trekked over all the land except for the

Asia Pacific Forestry which we didn’t have access to.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Because of the way that land is forested, it might be 20

quite difficult to spot, mightn’t it?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Indeed, and so I think it would be more as work in

progress proceed that we will manage that area. However, the further

inland you go, the less likely you are to find our areas of occupation, 25

they are more likely to be pathways - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Sure.

MS MOSES-TE KANI: - - - which is why the Pūhoi sector is of most 30

importance to us.

CHAIRPERSON: Thinking of the configuration of the land and the use to

which before Pakeha settlement, both coasts were put, it would be

unusual to find any significant urupa in the central part of the 35

Northland Peninsula there, wouldn’t it, in other words, on the Asia

Pacific land?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Yes, however, at the early stage we were considering

a project of using cultural knowledge and science to look at our 40

pathways and habitations within the centre of the island, so what we

know is generally research h and archaeology is focused on the

developments along the coast because that is where people want to live

still today, and that is the areas on the inland are less explored by both

ourselves and archaeologists to look at where our heritage might be, so 45

Page 896


Hokai Nuku has in development a GIS cultural heritage project to help

identify what might be hot spots as such for that whole landscape.

So we have had the opportunity to be on the land for this stage up to

Warkworth, but we are also concerned with up to Wellsford sector 5

which becomes a lot more complex.

CHAIRPERSON: That lies ahead, of course, yes.

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Yes. 10

CHAIRPERSON: And my final question is it is clear from the conditions

which NZTA are suggesting and also from their general application,

that there is going to be a degree of cultural monitoring by iwi and

consultation, particularly to guard against anything of archaeological or 15

cultural significance being discovered is if the motorway is developed,

if it is developed.

Are Hokai Nuku satisfied with the scope of those conditions?

20

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Yes, we are, in fact, I think our experience with my

role being outside of further north but having the opportunity to go in

and hound them all and understand what they were doing, that by

providing an iwi adviser inside the team moving forward, it will

facilitate heaps more opportunity to be involved in plans as they 25

happen, rather than, you know, basically I only saw them maybe once a

week so I am aware that development happens very quickly so the

position of iwi advisor inside the construction team I think will be

really influential.

30

[10.26 am]

CHAIRPERSON: That has been provided for, has it not?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: It has indeed. 35

CHAIRPERSON: Now, is there anything else you think we should know

about, now is your chance?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Now is my chance, no I think, thank you very much 40

for your questions, no I think we have covered it all.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Dillon, anything arising out of any of those questions

from the Board?

45

Page 897


MR DILLON: There was one that occurred to me sir in the course of that

question and that is the proposal is for a motorway which is very

specific in its design in terms of the ability to have access to the

motorway apart from fully formed access ramps. Is that something that

is appreciated by and part of the reason that the iwi is supporting the 5

proposal because it limits public access?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Actually the primary reason Hokai Nuku support this

proposal is that it will provide a safe pathway between the north and the

south and it is not actually about limiting access. We have had 10

opportunities through the project to ensure our cultural footprint is

acknowledged, but primarily our kaumatua sitting right here says to us it

is about safety.

CHAIRPERSON: About? 15

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Road safety.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

20

MR DILLON: My follow up question then is if it was an expressway as

opposed to a motorway would that alter the support for the project?

MS MOSES-TE KANI: I do not think I could, that’s seems to be a more of a

technical nature than I would be able to answer. 25

CHAIRPERSON: It does not really arise out of the Board’s questions, Mr

Dillon.

MR DILLON: No, it did not arise directly sir, but this was something that 30

occurred to me in the course of your questions, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: A very existential approach.

MR DILLON: Something like that, sir, yes. 35

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Dillon, Ms Brosnahan, re-examination?

MS BROSNAHAN: No, sir.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, we found your initial evidence really

helpful and the Board has also appreciated your input into the powhiri

and the way you have answered the questions today and we hope we

have a comprehensive and sensitive grasp of the cultural issues which

you have raised, many thanks indeed. 45

MS MOSES-TE KANI: Kia ora koutou.

<THE WITNESS WITHDREW [10.29 am]

Page 898


WAIATA

CHAIRPERSON: Where are we at now, Ms Brosnahan, we seem to have

made rapid progress to 11.30 but that is an hour’s time. 5

MS BROSNAHAN: That is all right, we can move steadily, Dr Clough is

here.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Ms Brosnahan at some stage before the witness 10

is sworn in and Dr Benge, you will need to sort this out, at some stage we

want to have a telephone conference involving you and Ms Crossen of

the Department of Conservation so that we can give both of you the

opportunity to amplify the memoranda you put in and make a decision.

15

I must say we found your memorandum very helpful and Dr Benge I did

not give you early warning of this but it is something we could do either

at the break or at lunchtime but I do not think we will need more than 10

or 15 minutes but the best way of doing it if you can do it is so we can

have a telephone conference or call Ms Crossen and Ms Brosnahan and 20

her team can be there too if they need be.

Where would we do that and the Boardroom would be preferable but I do

not think we have got a conference phone in there?

25

MR BENGE: Working on that, morning tea would be good.

CHAIRPERSON: Morning tea that would be good, well make sure Ms

Brosnahan does not disappear for a coffee in the Terrace somewhere

whenever we want her on line. Right, sorry, swear him in, please. 30

<RODNEY CLOUGH, affirmed [10.31 am]

<EXAMINATION BY MS BROSNAHAN [10.31 am]

35

MS BROSNAHAN: Can you please confirm that your full name is Rodney

Edward Clough?

DR CLOUGH: It is.

40

MS BROSNAHAN: And that you have the qualifications and experience set

out in paragraph 2 of your evidence-in-chief?

DR CLOUGH: I have.

45

MS BROSNAHAN: You’ve prepared one statement of evidence-in-chief,

dated 23rd of January?

Page 899


DR CLOUGH: Yes.

MS BROSNAHAN: Ah, and to you have any corrections to make?

DR CLOUGH: Ah, there’s one general correction, the HBT have changed 5

their name, they’re now HNZ, but you’re probably aware of that, and I

don’t think it’s worth going through the document. Then on page - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Well, could you just read that into the record, because

you’ve given two sets of initials. Could you just say what was formerly 10

whatever it was - - -

DR CLOUGH: It was the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, it’s now termed

HNZ or Heritage New Zealand.

15

CHAIRPERSON: All right, thank you.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you.

DR CLOUGH: And on page 13 of my evidence, 45D, it’s just a cross-20

reference to a condition, the cross-reference should be 66H instead of

66G.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. And can you please confirm with those

corrections for the Board that your evidence is true and correct to the 25

best of your knowledge and belief?

DR CLOUGH: Yes, it is.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Could you just pause again? You may need to move the

microphone fairly close to you because I seem to lose you lots of times.

Your last name – do you pronounce it Clough, Clough or something

else. 35

DR CLOUGH: Clough.

CHAIRPERSON: Clough, I thought it was. Okay.

40

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. Now, since lodging your evidence,

Dr Clough, can you provide the Board with an update on – I believe it’s

a resolution on archaeological issues.

DR CLOUGH: Actually one of the reasons there was a change in cross-45

references, we’ve undertaken further meetings with the Historic Places

Page 900


Trust and addressed their concerns laid out in their submission, and

now we’ve reached agreement and the regional archaeologist is

satisfied that the conditions now before us satisfy all their concerns.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you, and one question I’ve asked all of our 5

witnesses today is if the Hikawai Viaduct were to change to an

embankment would that change your assessment?

DR CLOUGH: Sorry, what was the question?

10

MS BROSNAHAN: The Hikawai Viaduct, if it were to change from a viaduct

to an embankment would that change your assessment?

DR CLOUGH: No, it really wouldn’t affect the assessment.

15

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you, can you please answer any questions from

friends and from the Board?

CHAIRPERSON: Now who’s scheduled to cross-exam Dr Clough? Mr

Dillon, you’re here again on the list? 20

<CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR DILLON [10.34 am]

MR DILLON: It is. Sir, I see I’m down for 30 minutes and it’s not going to

take anything like that time. I’m sure Mr Clough is pleased to hear. 25

I’ve got two questions and a follow-up question. The first, 41.4 of your

evidence you refer to making appropriate provision for public access by

walkways and waterways to the pa sites in particular. We have just

heard from the previous witness that there is an objection to making 30

public access to such sites, can you comment on that?

DR CLOUGH: Yes, I can. Obviously the access to those sites, it’s been an

ongoing discussion with Hokai Nuku, between ourselves, and I

acknowledge that it’s their preference not to have public access. 35

From an archaeological perspective, I have no objection to public

access – it raises the profile of historic heritage. I think we’re certainly

at the point where – well the second pa site, the new pa site is outside

of the designation so it’s no longer in the mix for access. The main pa 40

of Te Hamara, I believe there will be a degree of access and

interpretation there because of the historic cottages and everything, but

the site itself is, and I have to say I haven’t visited it but I’ve heard

enough about it, is not in good condition. The driveway’s been

bulldozed and the defensive ditch has been in-filled, so it’s not a site 45

Page 901


you’d visit today and appreciate it as a pa. And of course the part of

State Highway cut right through it.

[10.36 am]

5

So you wouldn’t really appreciate it as a pa, but there may be still some

possibilities for interpretation panels relating to the history of the site.

The Titford House, Titford Cottage and the presence of the pa but this

would be worked out in the CHAMPs, in the cultural heritage

archaeological management plan and in full consultation with Hokai 10

Nuku. So where we go in the end it will be very much an outcome of

full consultation.

MR DILLON: And I understand from paragraph 57 of your evidence and the

conclusions you are generally in favour of public access for the heritage 15

sites that you’ve identified in your evidence, is that correct?

DR CLOUGH: Yes. From an archaeological perspective.

MR DILLON: And this on the basis that public knowledge is beneficial to 20

actually facilitate preservation in the future of this and other sites?

DR CLOUGH: In my experience where we’ve put interpretation panels and

other elements acknowledging the past history of a site it generates a lot

of public interest so for me there’s a public benefit. And also of course 25

raising the profile of historic heritage in the public’s mind is a plus

because they’re much more aware of it and the need to protect it.

MR DILLON: And presumably this type of signage and public access isn’t

something that’s designed to be appreciated at 100 kilometres an hour on 30

the motorway?

DR CLOUGH: No, in fact it would probably be against safety regulations to

have signage that you have to stop and read on a motorway.

35

MR DILLON: So does that mean that your general conclusions are effectively

in support of my client’s contention that we should have a pedestrian and

cycleway associated with the proposal so that these sorts of things can be

appreciated by the public at a more leisurely pace?

40

DR CLOUGH: I would support a level of access and interpretation, but

equally I would support Hokai Nuku to ensure that the actual

implementation say of a cycleway or anything didn’t have further

impacts on their cultural footprint. So it’s very much a balancing act and

that’s why I said it will be worked out in full consultation exactly how far 45

we can go with interpretation.

MR DILLON: Thank you. I have no further questions, thank you sir.

Page 902


MR PARSONSON: Mr Clough, your recommendation in 44.4 and elsewhere

regarding provision of public access and interpretation, do you consider

that to be a necessary component of mitigation to offset effects of it on

archaeological matters for the project.

5

DR CLOUGH: I’ve always seen interpretation as part of the mitigation

package yes.

MR PARSONSON: If that facility wasn’t available through consultation with

Hokai Nuku is there alternative mitigation that could be provided by the 10

project?

DR CLOUGH: Yes I think once we look – part of the CHAMPs will be

looking at long-term preservation of the pa sites and of course the other

heritage items like cottages and that. And so through that more detailed 15

process when we’ve got better access to the properties and everything we

should be able to come up with a number of possibilities to add to

mitigation. Such as – it’s still up in the air the possibility of partially

excavating out the original ditch or finding where it is. There will be

possibilities with regard to planting in these sites to stabilise any erosion 20

and things but of course we haven’t been able to go down that track

simply because we haven’t had close access to the Pūhoi end and project

area.

MR PARSONSON: Are you of the view that there will be a package of 25

mitigation available that will adequately offset any adverse effects the

project will have in terms of archaeology?

DR CLOUGH: Yes, I’m perfectly happy with the direction we’re going in.

30

MR PARSONSON: Thanks.

MR CHANDLER: Dr Clough, in your evidence, paragraph 31, you talk there

about a re-design of the project moving the indicative viaduct to the east

and raising it. Is that the viaduct over the Okahu Estuary you’re referring 35

to?

[10.41 am]

DR CLOUGH: Yes, it’s the – as you come out of the tunnel, it’s the first 40

estuary to come, so you got Te Hemara’s Pa, the estuary and then the

new pa to the north, and it’s quite squeeze because of course the whole

route is constrained by the tunnel, where the tunnel is, there’s no

choice, and we have to link up to that tunnel.

45

And so it was quite an effort between Hokai Nuku, ourselves and the

engineers to manipulate that viaduct and the State Highway, through

that section of the route, to ensure avoidance as much as possible of

Page 903


effects on both pa sites. And as a consequence, we're able to complete

the – I mean, the – originally the route went right through the new pa.

MR CHANDLER: I see.

5

DR CLOUGH: And we then considered both options going east or west, and

of course, if we went further west, there were actually more

archaeological effects further along the route, and so squeezing it

through where we’ve been is probably the best balance, we avoid the

pa, we still don’t affect Te Hemara’s Pa, we may impact some 10

peripheral middens, depending on where the Pa are put, but generally a

good outcome – a lot of work, but a really good outcome.

MR CHANDLER: In the next paragraph, paragraph 32, you mentioned Titford

House and the Pa will both be adversely affected from a visual 15

perspective and by impacts on their setting and surrounds.

Are you able to assist us with the setting there, do you happen to know

whether the land around those two particular sites is of outstanding

natural character or outstanding natural features or regionally 20

significant landscape or some other …

DR CLOUGH: And not having been on the property, but from descriptions

I’ve heard, I think a lot of the natural characters have been well

modified in the past, by the activities relating to occupation – European 25

occupation of the site by the motorway going through that’s cut off the

pa. So I can’t really answer that with any accuracy, and I think it

probably would be best from a landscape person.

MR CHANDLER: Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chairman. 30

MR WITHY: Dr clough, you’re an independent consultant I see that, I need to

acknowledge membership of Heritage New Zealand over 40 years, but

as an independent advisor, you’re obviously happy with the way that

cultural concerns had been “incorporated”, if that’s the right word, into 35

design.

Do you have the same confidence as the project moves into

construction should it go ahead, given that that may well be an

independent contractor, you’ve obviously thought about the conditions 40

and the mechanisms, yet are you equally comfortable as you have been

with the process to date?

DR CLOUGH: In short, yes, and that’s partly built on my experience with

Waterview and other major State Highway projects. Working with 45

NZTA and the teams (the alliances), this – well, as you realise alliances

Page 904


are a relatively new thing – but even Victoria Park Tunnel, the

environmental team was completely onto it, they were, you know,

tuned into every possible effect and we were being called in endlessly,

and Waterview, we’ve achieved some great outcomes, not just through

the planning stage, but in practice. 5

So, you know, we’ve ended up with a heritage area that represents

Maori settlements, early European and later European settlements, so

we got multiple layers, all provided – well, all recognised and a

reconstruction of a historic bridge and pathways, interpretation, very 10

good outcomes, in practice.

And that – because you’ve got to – will have a CHMP, a Cultural

Heritage and Archaeological Management Plan, we’ll have full

processes in place, including training of the contractors, we regularly 15

attend toolbox meetings, so it’s a very interactive, these new alliances

and these NZTA projects are very interactive, they do achieve good

outcomes, today. I don’t know if that’s true in the past, but certainly

true today.

20

[10.46 am]

MR WITHY: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Clough, a series of totally unrelated questions I guess. I 25

see you did a PhD in archaeology at London University.

DR CLOUGH: Yes, true.

CHAIRPERSON: Was that after your Masters at University of Auckland? 30

DR CLOUGH: Yes it was.

CHAIRPERSON: Which college were you associated, University of London?

35

DR CLOUGH: It was then the Institute of Archaeology, which was part of the

University of London, it’s now become part of University College.

CHAIRPERSON: All right. And then, you’ve obviously had a very illustrious

career involving advice, archaeological advice on a large number of 40

projects, have you been involved in any archaeological digs or research

outside New Zealand?

DR CLOUGH: Yes, quite a lot.

45

Page 905


CHAIRPERSON: Give me the one you regard as being one of the most

interesting or important.

DR CLOUGH: Well, probably two sessions in Cyprus, were some of the most

fascinating, looking at ancient mining, but just to expand on it, 5

underneath the slag heap, which we all know what “slag” is - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR CLOUGH: - - - “waste process”, I excavated out and uncovered the 10

remains of beautiful lime plastered Greek administration buildings.

Within those buildings the Romans had come along and carried out

refining processes for gold and silver, it was fabulous, and we had

ceramics from 700BC to 700AD.

15

CHAIRPERSON: Sure, okay.

DR CLOUGH: There’s been some other interesting ones, but that probably - -

-

20

CHAIRPERSON: Right. Now you made a reference to historic – in a general

way, to historic bridges, and one of our site visits we were told in the

vicinity of Perry Road, that there was a historic bridge or it was

indicated as a “historic bridge” over one of the upper north arm of the

Mahurangi River, were you aware of this? 25

DR CLOUGH: There’s – yes, there’s a - - -

CHAIRPERSON: And can you tell us why it is historic?

30

DR CLOUGH: It’s old, it’s older than most.

CHAIRPERSON: It’s old, it, it – it could certainly be regarded as a small

farm crossing, but a - - -

35

DR CLOUGH: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: - - - it wasn’t sort of prompt de garde stuff.

DR CLOUGH: No, no, I mean the – I think to say something’s historic, 40

means it’s been there – as you appreciate – it’s been there a long time,

but it hasn’t been put through any evaluation process to say whether it’s

of great significance or its just, you know, as you say “a farm bridge

that’s been there from 1910”, so there’s a few of them in the area.

45

Page 906


CHAIRPERSON: Right. Now Pūhoi, the whole Pūhoi settlement I suspect is

of interest because in New Zealand terms it’s somewhat exotic, people

from Bohemia rather than sort of Ireland, England and Scotland and

similar places, and some of the families I think, Scholems (ph 3.22)

and the Schuskers (ph 3.23) are still in the region - - - 5

DR CLOUGH: Very much so.

CHAIRPERSON: - - - have you been able to sit down and see whether there

is any – anything on the ground in Pūhoi, which is still of importance to 10

the families of those original settlers?

DR CLOUGH: I haven’t discussed any of it with the descendants, but

certainly there’s – from memory there’s at least five buildings - - -

15

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR CLOUGH: - - - I think it’s five, scheduled in the Pūhoi area, and they are

held in high regard by – I mean most of the Pūhoi settlers today, even if

they’re not descendant are very proud of the heritage of their town. 20

CHAIRPERSON: The three houses or cottages which will have to be

removed, including one I think at Titford, is that right?

DR CLOUGH: Titford Cottage will - - - 25

CHAIRPERSON: Titford Cottage.

DR CLOUGH: - - - certainly have to be moved.

30

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR CLOUGH: Titford House perhaps not, it doesn’t have to be move, but

once we’ve been able to do a full assessment of it then - - -

35

CHAIRPERSON: Would I be right that those structures are significant

because of their association to the families who built occupy them

rather than being historic buildings of note.

DR CLOUGH: Yes, I mean it’s past their age. 40

CHAIRPERSON: Is that a fair summary?

DR CLOUGH: That’s a fair summary, yes.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Did you want to add to that?

Page 907


DR CLOUGH: I think perhaps their age obviously adds to their significance,

we haven’t really been able to determine their condition, and they’re

probably not of great architectural note, but that may be a bit premature

to say that. But, yes, the associations with the early settlers of Pūhoi is 5

perhaps of primary significance.

[10.51 am]

CHAIRPERSON: Right. Now finally moving further north, there’s reference 10

here to World War II military encampments. I rather suspect that very

few people even knew they were there, but they are there. I haven’t

done any research into this at all, but my gut reaction would be that

these were small training camps put in place by the US Marine Corp as

part of their general training for amphibious operations, would that be 15

right, or do you think they’ve got wider significance than that?

DR CLOUGH: I think they’ve got a higher significance. Obviously you’re

aware that American camps were dotted all over the country, I mean

Cornwall Park was one massive one. 20

CHAIRPERSON: Exactly.

DR CLOUGH: And some of these are quite large – if you actually look at the

plans in the original report you can see how extensive they are. It’s 25

quite interesting that many of the, I suspect many of the farm sheds and

everything have perhaps had their origins in the small camp buildings,

some of them were tents on wooden platforms, others were typical two

or four person structures. The farms still use some of the wells that

were dug during the construction of those encampments, and there’s 30

still old pumps and bits and pieces lying around, so I think there of

sufficient significance to warrant recording and reporting of.

CHAIRPERSON: In terms of the spread of World War II, the United States

encampments, is the impact of this proposed motorway significant, in 35

other words are any significant structures going to be destroyed?

DR CLOUGH: No. I mean there will be perhaps foundations and other bits

and pieces exposed but there’s no obvious significant structures

relating to the encampments. 40

CHAIRPERSON: Do you know whether in any local museums, like I’m

thinking of Warkworth I suppose, is there any display or public record

of that use of the land during the second World War? I’m unaware of

it, but I just wondered - - - 45

Page 908


DR CLOUGH: Well, I’m just trying to think, it’s been some years since I’ve

been to the, is it Perry Road, or Perry Road Museum - the little

Warkwork Museum may have something. They certainly have pictures

of the military blowing up the old cement works as a practice, and so

they may well have additional ones relating to the camps, it’s been so 5

long since I’ve been there.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, it lies outside our jurisdiction, but I’m just intrigued as

to whether there is any voluntary group, or even association which

might be looking at – not necessarily doing some research but just 10

marking in some permanent way that quite important military

involvement.

DR CLOUGH: I think the thought behind any information we get through the

construction process or research relating to the camps could well be 15

given over to the local museum for a small display.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, right.

DR CLOUGH: If they haven’t already done so. 20

CHAIRPERSON: And looking at the big picture, it’s your professional

opinion that the effects of this proposed highway on matters of heritage

interest and concern are being appropriately mitigated?

25

DR CLOUGH: Yes, I feel so, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Right. Any further questions?

MR WITHY: Just leading on from the Chair’s question about that bridge near 30

the fish farm, you mentioned that it might have been a farm bridge

from 1910. What would be the process – just take that as an example,

if during construction it was revealed that that in fact was part of the

original highway from Auckland to Whangarei, what would be the

process of dealing with that new information? 35

DR CLOUGH: Detailed recording is essentially the form of mitigation we take

during construction, so if old foundations are exposed – you can

actually do things like tree ring work, you know if the wooden piles or

anything, you know if they can be dated, it’s possible, there is some 40

chronological work being carried out in New Zealand at the moment

and it is proving successful on at least kauri. You try and find out as

much as you could from the timber, the type of timber, possible age of

the timber, the construction techniques used, the materials for

construction, it would be a detailed recording and finally reporting at 45

the end of the day?

Page 909


[10.56 am]

MR WITHY: When the project allows for that.

5

DR CLOUGH: Yes. I mean there is great deal of monitoring and recording

amount for within the conditions and that will be further detailed in the

CHAMP.

CHAIRPERSON: Have you, I am being slightly fanciful here I suppose but 10

have you looked at the conditions which NZTA is proposing and are

you satisfied that something of archaeological interest and I am

thinking of European or Pakeha archaeological interest rather than

Maori which we have heard about.

15

Are you satisfied that there are mechanisms in place for sort of stop

work, somebody would come on site and have a look at it? I mean let’s

say suddenly a bulldozer uncovers an amphibious landing vehicle

which broke down and the Americans decided they would bury it rather

than take it away that sort of thing? 20

DR CLOUGH: Yes, I am quite happy. There are three levels of protection for

that first of all there is the Z22 accidental discovery protocols that

NZTA have. HBT have suggested a slightly different set of protocols

but also over and beyond that the whole room, I would prefer the whole 25

room to be covered by an authority under the Historic Places Act and

again you will have an archaeological management plan attached to

that authority, but CHAMP another layer will take the consent

conditions and take the authority conditions and they will both be

brought into the archaeological management plan. 30

It will be quite clear and in the face of any of the contractors as to what

their responsibilities are. On top of that there are conditions relating to

monitoring by Hokai Nuku and monitoring by the archaeologists.

Working with Hokai Nuku is a double safety valve because there will be 35

times when they are there and the archaeologist is not but in all

likelihood they would identify something archaeological and say get the

archaeologist in here. There is a number of layers of protection?

CHAIRPERSON: Well are you satisfied with the layers which are there or do 40

you feel that they need to be tweaked?

DR CLOUGH: No, no the layers there are fine because one of the layers is of

course the CHAMP which will encapsulate all of that.

45

Page 910


MR PARSONSON: You just briefly mentioned that HNZ had a slightly

different set of conditions but at the start you said you now reached

agreement, can you just confirm their position on the current conditions.

DR CLOUGH: They are happy with the current conditions. 5

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Vella, did you have any questions you want to ask this

witness? Mr Dillon, keeping you on a tight rein there is nothing out of

the Board’s questions you wanted to explore further?

10

MR DILLON: No, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Re-examination?

MS BROSNAHAN: No, sir. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Clough, thank you very much, it has been very helpful

and very interesting, thank you for helping us.

DR CLOUGH: Thank you. 20

<THE WITNESS WITHDREW [11.00 am]

CHAIRPERSON: Well where does that leave us in terms of witnesses?

25

MR BENGE: May I suggest we have a slightly longer morning tea.

CHAIRPERSON: I was going to suggest that anyway, yes.

MR BENGE: Not that I am hungry but it will give us a chance to set up the 30

telephone conference and I would like to aim for about half 11 back in

this room.

CHAIRPERSON: We have got to come back here?

35

MR BENGE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Well it is not appropriate that a telephone conference which

involves the Board and counsel, that is not a public performance?

40

MR BENGE: No, sir, it will just be the Board and Ms Brosnahan in the room

here for the conference call.

CHAIRPERSON: It was original scheduled for two o’clock and Ms Brosnahan

just in case it is of relevance I think you can assume without tipping our 45

hand as to what might happen in the telephone conference, but I think

given the Board’s previous directions in this area that Dr Fisher at some

Page 911


stage will have to be recalled for the purposes of cross-examination, but

not necessarily to the procedural extent that your learned friend wanted.

But we’ll rule on that in due course. Where does the poor man live?

[11.01 am] 5

MS BROSNAHAN: He lives in Auckland. He’s fine.

CHAIRPERSON: That’s okay, so he can come back later in the week.

10

MS BROSNAHAN: Yes, or in 10 days’ time I think was - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Right. Was there something else you wanted to ask us

before we go off for this vastly long morning tea?

15

MS BROSNAHAN: No, sir, I think there’s a few things we can discuss with

Ms Crossen in that phone call. There are a couple of other things that

have come up and we’ve provided - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Relevant to Ms Crossen? 20

MS BROSNAHAN: Yes, sir. And also yesterday we provided additional

evidence for you in response to your request for the chronology.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. 25

MS BROSNAHAN: So there’s a couple of things that we’ve lodged in the first

few days that I wanted to confirm that you’ve got them.

CHAIRPERSON: We’ll need to get on top of that. We have a memorandum 30

relating to the Christophersen property which you put in.

MS BROSNAHAN: Yes, the Christophersen – the conditions came in on

Friday.

35

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, those have come in.

MS BROSNAHAN: And then late last night but we’ve got hard copies for

you today of Mr Edmonds’ supplementary evidence about - - -

40

CHAIRPERSON: What was your gift from last night?

MS BROSNAHAN: The Perry Road chronology.

CHAIRPERSON: We haven’t got that yet have we? No, that’s fine. And 45

Ms Vella it may be helpful if you’re here at the telephone conference

Page 912


just in case the Board or its Chair fall into procedural error though I

doubt it. And Mr Dillon this conference is all about sedimentation and

procedural problems between DOC and NZTA as to whether somebody

should be recalled or rebuttal evidence and all that sort of thing. That

doesn’t affect Asian Pacific so there’s no need – in fact have you got 5

anything more you’re doing today? Or not.

MR DILLON: No sir, I think I’m finished now.

CHAIRPERSON: Right, once we’ve retired you can head back to Auckland if 10

you feel like it. Okay, we’ll take the adjournment, thank you.

ADJOURNED [11.03 am]

RESUMED [12.21 pm] 15

CHAIRPERSON: I am sorry our adjournment took a bit longer than

anticipated but we h1ad a person on telephone link and it took longer

than we thought it would at the outset.

20

Is Mr David Wilmott here. Mr Wilmott, we have had a look at your

submissions and can you just tell us briefly because basically you

support the project. Thank you for coming here early, we have sort of

bonded ahead of time though we have lost a little bit but we are about

35 to 40 minutes ahead and I gather you need to go overseas tomorrow, 25

is that right?

MR WILMOTT: That’s right.

CHAIRPERSON: Depending on how it goes, although you weren’t originally 30

going to be here until 2 o’clock, if we are close to finishing your case at

1 o’clock but not quite finished, we will just extend over into the lunch

break. Are you happy with that - - -

MR WILMOTT: Thank you, yes, your Honour. 35

CHAIRPERSON: - - - so that you don’t have to come back after break.

MR WILMOTT: Thank you, yes.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Can you just in general terms tell us because the secretary

weren’t sure, do you just want to make a submission to us in which

case doing it from there is fine, or was there some actual evidence you

wanted to give in which case you have to go into the witness box, and

are subject to the risks of being cross-examined by all these lawyers 45

here?

Page 913


So which way do you want to go?

MR WILMOTT: I am happy to be cross-examined but the submission, in

effect, is as an independent expert commentator totally unobligated in 5

any way to anybody involved in this hearing other than to the

profession of engineering and to facts and realities and cost

consciousness.

CHAIRPERSON: Well it sounds to me like a submission which is backed up 10

by a degree of personal expertise, is that right?

MR WILMOTT: I would agree on that.

CHAIRPERSON: I am happy for you to do it from there if you are. Have you 15

got something in writing for us?

MR WILMOTT: Just my submission, I am sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: That’s all right, okay. All right, off you go and are you 20

comfortable with that approach, Ms Brosnahan. You don’t want to ask

him any questions?

MS BROSNAHAN: I don’t believe so, sir, and I don’t know what he is going

to say. 25

CHAIRPERSON: It is only if you say something totally outrageous that we

may force you to go into the box - - -

MR WILMOTT: I am happy to be sworn in later if anybody wants to ask any 30

questions.

CHAIRPERSON: We will, we will probably interrupt you and ask you a few

questions as well. You know, if you were suddenly going to say there

is going to be an eclipse of the sun in three days’ time and that was 35

contested, we might have to put you in the box, but I am sure you

won’t go as far as that.

Ms Vella, are you comfortable with that approach?

40

MS VELLA: Yes, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay, off you go.

MR WILMOTT: First of all I have no PhD and indeed no specific qualification 45

in either urban developing planning other than as a town planner and I

Page 914


have a diploma in town planning, or as a motorway designer although I

have done what I would describe as a hell a lot of that, and at top level

internationally.

I have also done residential subdivisions and I have qualifications as a 5

civil engineer, BE Civil, Dip TP and Dip Management. I have a whole

range of post graduate, post units, which followed by interest in

economics principally, transport economics. Traffic engineer, you will

see whether I was ahead of what they are teaching at university which I

was and philosophy and politics as well, they are abiding interests so I 10

try to understand the whole urban system and that precludes expertise if

you like, in any one area although I would say that in any one area, I

am as expert as the next.

My experience started with Auckland City Council, Traffic and 15

Motorways Departments after a brief stint in roads and drainage. One

of three men, the junior man of the team, designing half of Auckland’s

motorway network and we did it in about seven years, I left after three

but the whole of the eastern corridor was pegged and bought out to

Mount Wellington has been sitting there in thistles ever since. 20

Moved on to Toronto, I designed the Don Valley Parkway Highway

4001 interchange which probably is still today one of the world’s

biggest I not the biggest. 16 ramps and nine bridges, eight lanes over

and 16 lanes under, was the end result. It started off with four lanes 25

over and six lanes under.

[12.26 pm]

In the UK I was over at Marmaris who are now world leaders in traffic 30

and transportation design, I was their first employee with expertise in

either of those areas, and was automatically assigned to their first

highway job, which was in Nigeria, 60 kilometres of rural motorway.

Then back at Beckers, Pakuranga Motorway, Motorway City Centre,

one of a four-man team, but I did most of the work, if not all of it. 35

Then I left Beckers with a small family, did sub divisional engineering

and expert evidence for Peter Salmond on traffic and transportation

matters. Indonesian betterment programme, I was the project manager

for then the World Bank’s biggest project, five billion dollars, 40

upgrading the whole of Indonesia’s state highway network.

Then 10 years later I was invited back to double the capacity of

(INDISTINCT 1.06), we just had to put a 10 year life on them.

45

Page 915


And more recently, I’ve just been commissioned to various South East

Asian countries to advise on urban development or motorway network

development. My distaste for the town planning was a road network

development at Manukau City Centre, and road network development –

if I had any area of expertise, that’s it, and one suggestion I make is 5

that there is a minor addition to this alignment as proposed.

CHAIRPERSON: All right, well tell us about that Mr Wilmott?

MR WILMOTT: Well there is a diagram - - - 10

CHAIRPERSON: Can I just ask, what you’re reading from, this is - - -

MR WILMOTT: No, I’m just introducing myself - - -

15

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that all right, but this wasn’t part of your original

submission filed last year, was it?

MR WILMOTT: No, but our CUST website has my personal CV, but I was

alerted to the fact that you were not aware of that - - - 20

CHAIRPERSON: So are those copies for us you’ve got in your hand or not?

Not.

MR WILMOTT: I’ve just marked up my copy of the submission. 25

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

MR WILMOTT: And which I was going to speak to, and then invite you to

question me on any part of my submission. 30

CHAIRPERSON: All right, that’s fine. Okay, on you go please. In particular

the one alteration you’re suggesting.

MR WILMOTT: All right, the Centre for Urban Transport studies is a group 35

of retired or semi-retired professionals in the whole are of urban

development planning, in particular motorway planning. One of the

members, John Foster, who was chief design engineer for the National

Roads Board for about 30 years, is giving submissions on Transmission

Gully at the moment. Our submission has just come from concern at 40

what’s been happening to the professional engineering and the facts

and realities in cost consciousness, as the world has been overwhelmed

by idealism, environmentalism and central planning, integrated

planning by a handful of elites and idealist with an aesthetic vent, who

by in large draw their inspiration from agenda 21, the United Nations 45

UNCED’s Earth Summit in Rio.

Page 916


Agenda 21 is on the web, 27 principles thereof, a recipe for global

socialism wrapped in green drag.

Now this is not to say we don’t need to address many major 5

environmental problems, but these mostly relate to international

commons, that is un-owned territories such as the atmosphere, such as

the oceans outside of 200 mile territories. Also ground waters are un-

owned by anybody in particular, so those sorts of natural commons un-

owned and therefore with no person responsible for preserving their 10

capital value are the major global problem, and we do have to address

that.

So environmentalism does have its benefits, and indeed we must all be

all very conscious of our environment. But nevertheless, to have a 15

group of enthusiasts and idealists essentially take over global planning,

which is what’s been happening, to the exclusion of realities and

people’s needs, people’s wants and needs, and in complete reversal of

enablement oriented planning such as the RMA was intended to

introduce at the expense of town planning. 20

When we went bankrupt in 84, it was recognised that we needed to do

something about freeing up the economy and becoming more enabling

of the private sector to create wealth, hence the Resource Management

Act displaced town planning. This was put on us by the RMF who 25

wouldn’t roll our loans over at an affordable interest rate unless we

brought in more market, less government regulation and intervention.

[12.31 pm]

30

And then, eventually the economy started to take off under that new

regime, but just as it’s taking off in the 90s, the full power of central

planning and urban implosion, was brought in with the RM – under the

guise of the RMA.

35

In fact, it’s just a straight copy of American architect driven aesthetics

or into town planning, they call it “Smart GOF” over there, it’s word

for word imported into New Zealand and relabelled “Compact Cities”.

The rationale is the same, it’s almost invariably wrong. It is costing

Auckland 6-8 billion dollars a year in extra consumption of resources 40

to smash down what exists and to double up on top of it, to overload

existing services and existing road networks and so on.

So our concern is that we should go back to a more market oriented

enablement philosophy of planning such as the RMA intended. 45

Page 917


CHAIRPERSON: Well, Mr Willmott, with respect you’ve – and I sort of let

you go for the last few minutes because I’ve been quite intrigued, but

you’re raising a number of “mega issues” if I can put it that way, which

are dealing with global aspects of environmentalism and overarching

economic issues and models and so on and so forth. 5

But I think you’d accept that NZTA hasn’t come in with a proposal

which is philosophically flawed or which is some form of

environmentalism in drag or anything of that nature, and I think we

really be assisted with somebody of your background and experience in 10

you focusing on the project as it is and any comments which you might

have as to how it could be improved rather than worrying too much

about the economic infrastructure of the nation or environmentalism on

a global basis, do you understand what I’m saying?

15

MR WILLMOTT: Yes, sure I do.

CHAIRPERSON: I thought you’ll probably say that, just come back a little

bit more on focus, we’d be helped, because we, we don’t want, you

know, you are speaking from a position of some authority and 20

experience and we’d like to have the benefit of that, thank you.

MR WILLMOTT: Well I’ll get back to word “enablement” and, the building

of this motorway will enable people to do what they want and need to

do, it will improve their lives, it will enable them to “better” their lives 25

by reducing travel distances and costs, so I’m very much in favour of

building this highway.

But I’m aware that there’s a very substantial reverse opinion that it

shouldn’t be built, it - we need to say the plan, instead of enabling 30

people to better their lives. We are totally opposed to that, our negative

anti-motorway philosophy.

CHAIRPERSON: I don’t know whether it helps you, but the technicians

obviously having – everything you say has to be typed out somewhere 35

on this, so may be if you just spoke from the – I don’t know, are you

comfortable from speaking from – where the chair is, or do you want to

sit on the side of the table there, whichever you – but just keep the mic

within the range otherwise what you say may be lost.

40

MR WILLMOTT: I’ll attempt to speak into it directly.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that’s fine.

MR WILLMOTT: So yes we see that as part of progress. Auckland is 45

doubling its population, if you believe what we're told, and certainly I

Page 918


believe we should be planning for doubling, whether it happens in 40

years or 80 is almost irrelevant, but we do need that motorway,

technology is not going to go backwards voluntarily.

I’ve been evaluating motorway projects in China, 120 kilometres long, 5

each of them and they’re building eight of them per year, building 30 –

80,000 kilometres now motorways, over a 30 year period, they’re not

about to stop using public vehicular transport, they’ll become the world

leaders in car manufacturing shortly and here we are talking about

getting out of our cars. Comparable with the telephone, comparable 10

with electric power in terms of providing the longevity we currently

enjoy.

So, yes, we need the motorway and, if we, like Lot’s wife, turn back

because we are feared of progress, then we're about to lose our life and 15

turn into as she did a pillar of salt. I’m not - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Pillar of salt.

MR WILLMOTT: - - - totally religious, but it’s a good analogy. 20

CHAIRPERSON: Right.

MR WILLMOTT: Progress is what’s needed, and we're in danger of stopping

the world and going backwards and when that happens the whole lot 25

will, in my submission, collapse – we can’t afford to let that happen.

[12.36 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Willmott we have had some evidence which will be on 30

the website from groups which have prioritised the environmental

aspect and there are some environmental aspects which this Board has

to be cautious with such as stands of forest and sedimentation and the

two major catchments.

35

My assessment from your submission which I have now read for about

the third time is that you are, for the reasons you have told us

supportive of the motorway and you see this as realistic progress in the

Auckland area.

40

What I want to know is whether there are any areas of what is proposed

which you disagree with or which you think can be improved so could

you please focus on that, all right. I think Lott (ph 00.56) and his wife

would appreciate it if you did.

45

Page 919


MR WILLMOTT: Two primary areas sir, recent motorway projects have been

squanderous in their approach aiming for world class standards for a

bare economy, we just cannot afford the tunnels at eight to 10 times the

cost of surface road solutions.

5

Similarly, glancing at the design of this, while it is great to have a 150,

200 mile an hour motorway, the question is, is it built to a higher

standard than we can reasonably afford. Now I have not studied it and

I am not about to say it should be reduced, but I do see on the State

Highway 16 a doubling of the road reserve to accommodate landscape, 10

forests of flax and the like and artworks which are, in our submissions,

something beyond what this country can afford.

We should be putting that money into a lot of other projects which

equally need to be done to a lower standard and that way may be you 15

could build up the whole economy so I question the standard of the

geometric design standard.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying it is too luxurious?

20

MR WILLMOTT: It is quite possibly too luxurious. I just ask the Board to be

far more conscious and cautious of the possibility of stage

development, just doing enough now to get the thing built and started

and allow for adding qualities later on when there is money available

for that sort of thing. 25

At the moment the country is borrowing $200,000,000 a week. We

cannot afford our existing welfare system quite apart from mega

projects which are over the top as the tunnels in Auckland are. I am

just saying that the Board should be far more conscious of affordability 30

criteria rather than world’s best standards which seems to be driving

much of NZTAs work these days.

CHAIRPERSON: Well some of the submitters who you have been so critical

of are saying something very close to what you are just saying is that 35

(a) the country cannot afford it and B we do not need something of this

magnitude and (c) a lot of what is really necessary is to upgrade the

existing State Highway 1, is that your submission?

MR WILLMOTT: No, absolutely not, as I said build the motorway. 40

CHAIRPERSON: You would like us to build it?

MR WILLMOTT: Yes, absolutely build it.

45

Page 920


CHAIRPERSON: Right, but you want a basic motorway rather than a gold

plated one?

MR WILLMOTT: Well if there are bits that can be left off without

compromising the provision of a four lane motorway. 5

CHAIRPERSON: Have you got, well, let us grapple with specifics. What

would you like to be left off if anything otherwise you are just talking

in theory with respect? Is there something about this which is what I

have asked you now for the third time, is there something about this 10

motorway which you think is wrong or should be improved?

MR WILLMOTT: Well the second point addresses that exactly. Yes, there is

something left off that is desperately needed.

15

CHAIRPERSON: Which is?

MR WILLMOTT: That is a connection to the southern end of Warkworth

with a potential to relieve the Hill Street junction.

20

CHAIRPERSON: Right, so you would like another off and on ramp south?

MR WILLMOTT: Yes, coming northwards a half diamond onto a new road

to be built roughly according to where I have shown it on this diagram?

25

CHAIRPERSON: Right.

MR WILLMOTT: I have shown my proposal dashed, it is only indicative

considerable study, there it is up on the screen.

30

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR WILLMOTT: A considerable study would need to find a property

divisions and stream locations and to ensure property access is

maintained but in that general area there seem to me two or three 35

options which are symbolically represented by that connection and if a

connection like that was built then you can see I have dotted it to the

right, an extension that in future could well be added when the

Warkworth population and that of Matakana and the rest doubles, even

as Auckland is expected to double, because the only alternative is to 40

put a flyover over the Hill Street intersection, and that to my mind is

environmentally questionable, and I am highly sensitive to

environmental matters.

Page 921


[12.41 pm]

Much of – the whole of that Kawau Bay at the moment has to pour

through the Hill Street intersection, that’s nuts. Yet, our Auckland

Council has no plans for reliving that, that’s nuts also, that’s anti-5

transport planning.

You must envisage a – if you’re envisaging a doubling of Auckland’s

population, the pressure of older folk retiring to this area, I know

several myself, is going to increase with the increase of people who are 10

older. It’s a lovely part, it’s close to Auckland, it’s accessible from the

kids and the Hill Street solution could be resolved by a parallel route

bypassing Warkworth completely as indicated.

CHAIRPERSON: So your optimum solution then, is to keep the proposed 15

highway as it is which means that all north bound traffic will bypass

Hill Street and indeed Warkworth. But to put what’s really a totally

new Matakana link road to the south of Warkworth, which would take

on the basis of this very helpful outline you got, take all the traffic

coming north which is going to end up by going to either Matakana or 20

Tawharanui or Snells Beach.

MR WILLMOTT: That’s right

CHAIRPERSON: But effectively all the traffic which goes through 25

Warkworth at the moment, would not have to go anywhere near the

place, is that it?

MR WILLMOTT: Yes, unless you wanted to pick up a bottle of milk or - - -

30

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, okay.

MR WILLMOTT: - - - dine on the way.

CHAIRPERSON: Well that’s an interesting concept, thank you very much. 35

MR WILLMOTT: And of course, much Warkworth traffic itself, would find

that more convenient as well. Now - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying that we should prioritise this propose 40

southern link before the motorway itself, or do you see the motor – or

you’re supporting the motorway, aren’t you?

MR WILLMOTT: I’m supporting the motorway.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

Page 922


MR WILLMOTT: The alignment looks good to a casual glance, and I haven’t

had the time or the resources, including topo maps, to start criticising

the alignment. It’s a lovely alignment, it’s probably designed at a

higher standard than the economy can afford, but I wouldn’t say “Stop 5

the world and go back another 10 years to start again”.

What I would say, is that they should look at stripping out of that, what

can be added later and saving that money for when it’s really needed

and affordable, such as, fields of flax, artificial planting. 10

Now, the old motorway network used to look lovely, to travel down

south with hardly any specific provision for landscaping. Indeed, I

found it a delight to drive in itself.

15

Now, to my mind, the lack of a connection south of Warkworth is an

absolute abnegation of traffic and transportation planning. It’s an

adoption by Auckland Council of a “stop the world, we don’t want

anybody to use cars anymore, we're running out of oil, the climate is

going to collapse, so we're in charge and we want everybody to do 20

what we tell them”, that’s what we’ve got to, and we're being told to

use public transport or walk or cycle, that’s nuts.

Rail transit and Auckland uses three-five times the energy per person

kilometre, day long, as do private cars and buses – they’re about the 25

same, buses and private cars. Rail transit is, if you come out of the

London tubes, it’s filthy, it grinds brake dust, is steel on steel, the

whole of that air – and people come out pasty faced, ozone is created

by steel wheels on their. The whole image of rail and electric driven

rail being clean is nonsense, and the whole answer – the whole idea that 30

that can solve Auckland transport problems, is errant nonsense and it’s

absolutely in the opposite direction to what Auckland needs, if it’s to

generate more wealth to pay the bills and, by all the wealthier that

we're distributing.

35

So I’d say, forget what the planners planned, other than that motorway

designer, clearly that guy knows what he’s doing, but he’s been given a

brief to build the world’s best. But the absence of any road network

development planning for this area, in the face of the Hill Street

problem which has been there for decades, is nuts, it’s anti-planning. 40

Page 923


[12.46 pm]

Anyway, that’s essentially my submission, sir. I’d very much like to

answer any questions and then I’d be very happy to harangue on for

another half an hour. 5

CHAIRPERSON: No, no, we don’t require that. Can you just – have you got

a copy of the original submission which you put in last year there,

Mr Wilmott?

10

MR WILMOTT: Yes, well I’ve got my printout.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that’s all we need. Go through to - - -

MR WILMOTT: It includes, I might say, a whole lot of stuff which I cut out 15

from my original submission, which is italics, you’re welcome to make

some sense out of that if you can.

CHAIRPERSON: At the bottom of the first page there’s an underlined

heading which says “Change Sought”, have you got that? 20

MR WILMOTT: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that effectively the change you’ve proposed of this

bypass to the South, which is shown on the plan you’ve produced? 25

MR WILMOTT: Yes, I said in my submission – I mentioned Perry Road. In

fact, I would avoid Perry Road itself by taking relatively vacant land in

the area that I’ve shown, and I would add a request that that proper

compensation be paid. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. I just want to focus – what you’ve shown on your

map is three or 400 metres, or probably half a k north of Perry Road.

MR WILMOTT: Yes. 35

CHAIRPERSON: So do you have any concerns about Perry Road?

MR WILMOTT: Well when I scrambled this together about 10 minutes before

closing date, I hadn’t studied the topo map and the detail that I did at 40

the time that I drew that map, which was just a couple of nights ago.

And I said in the vicinity of Perry Road.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I just wasn’t quite sure whether there was some focus

of Perry Road. One of the issues which does relate to Perry Road, 45

however, is that it’s proposed that this motorway should swing over the

Page 924


top of a regenerated Kauri grove, which has got Kauri in it of about 100

years old or more, and that probably 370-odd of them should be topped

or cut down to make way for an eco-viaduct. That seems to be

NZTA’s preferred option rather than swinging further to the east and

compulsorily acquiring a fish farm. Have you got any views from your 5

experiences to what sort of balance should be adopted there?

MR WILMOTT: Yes. Motorways are essentially designed between pinch

points. Early on in the game you establish what the key – mostly

topographical, sometimes land use constraints are, then you look at the 10

sub-divisional boundaries and the stream patterns, and then you try and

find an alignment that respects those as much as reasonably possible in

a balanced way while still achieving a fluid fluent alignment, both

vertically and horizontally. So it’s a juggling thing with an artwork.

15

Any one local change like that has ramifications in all directions, and

most certainly - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Both north and south.

20

MR WILMOTT: - - - along the alignment for quite some considerable

distance, both vertically and horizontally. Now with an alignment

designed like that you’re going to extend a long way in each direction.

If it was a much more fluid alignment that sat more comfortably on the

hills at a lower standard, as would be appropriate for a much lesser 25

route than this, then you’re rather more flexible and you can respect

local values.

But I just make the point that within Auckland people on average live

in a house for seven years, it might be a bit longer out here where 30

you’ve got farms – 10 years I’d say on average, which means that on

average people are halfway through that, they’ve only got another five

years on average in their existing place. This thing will be five years

before it’s built, so an existing resident by in large should not be able

swing a motorway that’s going to be there for a thousand years, and it’s 35

going to service 70,000 vehicles a day in due course.

CHAIRPERSON: All right, thank you for that. Now, we’ll see whether any of

the Board have any questions. Mr Chandler?

40

MR CHANDLER: Mr Wilmott, just confirming, you haven’t looked at the

exact alignment of the proposal, so you can’t comment on particular

details of the route, is that my understanding?

Page 925


[12.51 pm]

MR WILMOTT: Yes. But I would say that I looked at it, and being generally

aware of the terrain I was well aware of the difficulties of putting a

motorway through there, and but the look of the alignment I would say 5

the designer was competent in a way that I would describe as

competent, and I would trust him, therefore, to have taken into account

alignment constraints, I not quality constraints.

Clearly the younger generation thinks that the sky is the limit as far as 10

expenditure is concerned, and affordability is not a problem –

somebody will provide the money somehow. In my generation, not too

long after the depression, people were very conscious of not spending

more than they could afford for when the bank called up the loan. And

we are running into grave danger of having the international 15

community call up our loan.

MR CHANDLER: Now one of the existing roads that this motorway would

intersect with is called Moirs Hill Road – are you familiar roughly with

where Moirs Hill Road is? 20

MR WILLMOTT: Yes, that’s the top of the alignment.

MR CHANDLER: On the ridge.

25

MR WILLMOTT: Yes. Roughly.

MR CHANDLER: We heard evidence earlier that perhaps an interchange

there with a rest stop and a service station and so on might be a useful

addition to the motorway – are you able to comment on that? 30

CHAIRPERSON: We are showing you the designation there on the map.

MR WILLMOTT: Yes. Certainly a motorway is to service the surrounding

terrain as well as the through traffic. There seems to be a habit 35

developing that let’s not build any interchanges, and the absence of this

road that I suggested with an interchange south of Warkworth is a

classic case in point. The national crowd just looks at their role as

shifting people from one city to another. Actually, you have got to

serve the local community as well. 40

Now, to my knowledge Moirs Hill doesn’t serve much of a local

community and the cost of an interchange would be very substantial

and I would doubt that you could justify it in any sense other than as an

anticipation of future urban development in the not too distant vicinity. 45

Page 926


I am rather of the expectation that Warkworth and the whole of the

Kawau Bay will develop, but that much of the area traversed by this

motorway will not. So I would question whether an interchange there,

other than for easy access – now as regards to the service area, easy

access for the constructors that is – as regards the service facility, 5

typically those should be located to suit the road user on a long distance

so that he can, every two hours, he has got a service station, and that is

what should constrain where those things are located rather than an

opportunity like that.

10

The workers have got to be able to get to that place and get home again,

so typically you don’t want it right out in the country unless it is two

hours in each direction from the next one, in which case, you know,

you have to. It’s not just the workers – it’s the service people, the

suppliers, there is a lot of work involved in running a service facility. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Well at the moment somebody travelling north, the last

service area is just south of Silverdale, you would probably know the

station there.

20

MR WILLMOTT: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And then if one was to stay on this proposed motorway you

could either come off and go to Warkworth to refuel or have a coffee,

or go on up to Wellsford. DO you think that is a reasonable sort of 25

interval?

MR WILLMOTT: Well for me, I would fuel up before I left home and drive

on up to Whangarei.

30

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR WILLMOTT: You know, that is the sort of interval you need a - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Exactly, yes. 35

MR WILLMOTT: - - - now when you are arriving from the south into

Auckland a lot of people want to fuel up and relax before they go a

visit somebody for the evening, or before they go to a hotel and have to

get a meal there, so there is a justification for one in Bombay. But to 40

really justify one between here and – to me it is a - - -

CHAIRPERSON: The next one is - - -

MR WILLMOTT: - - - they would have a hard job making it pay. 45

Page 927


CHAIRPERSON: Any other questions, Mr Chandler?

MR CHANDLER: No.

CHAIRPERSON: No questions, no question, yes? 5

MR WITHY: You are speaking for the Centre for Urban and Transport

studies, and what sort of an organisation is that?

MR WILLMOTT: It is just a loose association of – well, Graeme Dickson 10

was chief traffic engineer of Auckland City Council, there’s John

Foster whom I mentioned earlier on, and there was Owen McShane

until he died year back. Now - - -

MR WITHY: I am familiar with those people. 15

MR WILLMOTT: - - - there are another dozen people who don’t want their

name to be in public as opposing the present style of planning.

MR WITHY: Mm’hm. 20

[12.56 pm]

MR WILLMOTT: There is a general groundswell or reaction against it

because of the heavy costs it imposes and the unaffordability and the 25

class severance for the unaffordable people, people like us, who owned

their property 40 years ago, have scored a million bucks of total

unearned capital gain, far better than being employed, all you need to

do is to have had to own a property back in the early seventies when it

cost you 16,000 bucks. And your mortgage is done in no time at all, 30

and all the rest is capital. And then the kids have to buy that. What’s

that if not intergenerational inequity on a revolution generating scale?

MR PARSONSON: But what I am getting at is you are speaking for an

organisation. Have those people all turned their mind to this project, or 35

is it just your opinion and you happen to be a member of that body?

MR WILLMOTT: The others haven’t looked specifically at this one as I have.

I did do a report for Shell on Transmission Gully about 15 years ago

and I made that available to John who is putting in submissions down 40

there, but no, we are just a loose collection of mostly engineers or

mostly pragmatic people who are concerned that we have got a half-

brained society which is all emotion, all heart, no brain, no head.

We are all yin and no yang, and we need a far better balance of 45

pragmatism along with the idealism and enthusiasm so that the decision

Page 928


makers can make the value judgements in the trade-offs bearing in

mind what is in the kitty.

At the moment all the values are incorporated in the plan and the

politicians just sign off and pay the bills. You might as well not have 5

the politicians, the whole show is run by the - - -

CHAIRPERSON: I think what Mr Withy would really like to no which with

respect you haven’t quite answered but I get the general drift of what

you are saying. 10

That is, that are you the spokesperson with the submission you made to

a group of people which numbers about, and you can give us a number,

or has that group sort of given you carte blanche to make submissions

on this project because you know what you are talking about. 15

Which of those two?

MR WILLMOTT: On our website you will find a page which describes our

common core philosophy. That is all we each need to operate as 20

individuals, we know where we all come from, we have gone through

the same schools, we have been in the sample place over 55 years and

we believe that society is careering off course and is destroying itself.

25

CHAIRPERSON: So the other members of this loose association, as you have

described it, wouldn’t be outraged about what you have told us today?

MR WILLMOTT: Not at all, no.

30

CHAIRPERSON: And can you just give us a ballpark figure, are we talking

about six people, 25, 60, just pluck a number if it is accurate?

MR WILLMOTT: Of those firmly in support of the general need to get back

to enablement rather than to disablement there would be maybe 10, 35

there would be 50 or so others who sympathise or empathised with us

on any one particular project or on the views that we express. Mostly

they are professional people, almost without exception, and mostly they

are retired, or those who are not willing to have their names made

public, they are still employed. They are afraid because there is only 40

one game in town and if they don’t play that game, they are as good as

professionally dead.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Brosnahan, Mr Willmott has made submissions which

you heard and he has amplified them and he has I think, quite sensibly 45

chosen not to give evidence because it wasn’t really necessary in the

Page 929


circumstances. Are there any questions which you feel the Board

should be asking him rather than you yourself?

MS BROSNAHAN: No, sir, I think you have asked the clarification questions.

5

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. That is very helpful.


CHAIRPERSON: And the Board, Ms Vella, is there anything you think we 10

ought to be asking Mr Willmott?

MS VELLA: No, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Well Mr Willmott, thank you very much and as it has 15

turned out, we are not even going to have to trespass into your

lunchtime or ours. Where are you heading off overseas to?

MR WILLMOTT: The grandkids and our kids are in London and Wales, there

is a farm, and then a farm in West Surrey. 20

CHAIRPERSON: I hope you don’t have to spend too much time in the

London underground. We would hate you to come back looking pasty

MR WILLMOTT: Sir, could I add one other observation. 25

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR WILLMOTT: And I alluded to that in your pre thingy hearing back in –

about a month ago, and that is the soil runoff. 30

CHAIRPERSON: The which?

MR WILLMOTT: The soil runoff.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh yes, sediment, yes. 35

MR WILLMOTT: The whole business of soil runoff being a problem which

should stop or reshape or add cost to this road. If you stand at a river

mouth after a 10 year old downpour whether that river mouth is in

forested terrain, farmland, existing residential development or new 40

residential development it will be disgorging vast quantities of silt

regardless of any works introduced my man.

Page 930


[1.01 pm]

That is where 90 percent of the silt that builds our vast platforms from

the land out into sea comes from?

5

CHAIRPERSON: Like the Mississippi and the Maldelta’s (ph 00.33).

MR WILLMOTT: Yes, now some people are making a neat living out of

selling us very expensive and very ineffective works for silt runoff and

control. This is not to say you should not be careful when you expose 10

large areas of dirt in building a motorway but being careful is one

thing.

Making it so costly is also to stop the motorway being built is

something else and I just ask you to have due regard to the section 32 15

of the RMA which is totally ignored by almost everybody these days,

the need to be careful of other people’s money and that is just a classic

case.

The most expensive of all this environmental clip ons that you have got 20

but I ask you to be very wary of the industry that is being around this

business of silt runoff because it is creating a major push for the

unaffordable land in Auckland. A good component, about $60,000 for

every new section that includes for land, for special treatments and for

the construction difficulties that you have got to build the thing. 25

CHAIRPERSON: Well, thank you, Mr Willmott, we will take that aboard and

at the end of the day as you know from your experience it is a

balancing exercise which we will have to think very carefully about.

Thank you for your submissions which have interesting and helpful. 30

We will take the adjournment now but who do we have at two o’clock,

have we got Dr Fisher read to roll?

MS BROSNAHAN: Yes, sir.

35

CHAIRPERSON: Is two o’clock or do you want a bit more time up your

sleeve?

MS BROSNAHAN: Two o’clock is fine, sir.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Right, if we need the hour we will come back at five past

two, but we will go for two o’clock, right, adjourn please.

ADJOURNED [1.04 pm]

45

RESUMED [1.59 pm]

Page 931


CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Ms Brosnahan?

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you, sir. Dr Fisher.

5

<TIMOTHY SIMON RICHMOND FISHER, affirmed [2.01 pm]

<EXAMINATION BY MS BROSNAHAN [2.01 pm]

MS BROSNAHAN: Can you please confirm that your full name is Timothy 10

Simon Richmond Fisher?

DR FISHER: Yes, it is.

MS BROSNAHAN: You have the qualifications and experience set out in 15

paragraphs two to four of your evidence-in-chief?

DR FISHER: I do.

MS BROSNAHAN: You have prepared two statements of evidence, a 20

statement of evidence-in-chief dated 23 of January 2014 and a rebuttal

statement dated the 18 of March?

DR FISHER: Yes, I did.

25

MS BROSNAHAN: Do you have any corrections to make to those?

DR FISHER: I do not have corrections to my evidence, but there are

corrections to the Operational Water or Assessment Report.

30

MS BROSNAHAN: Sir, the amendments that Dr Fisher is speaking of, we

thought it appropriate to reprint the pages for you to assist and then I

will have Dr Fisher speak to those, are they referred to again in your

evidence, Dr Fisher?

35

DR FISHER: Yes, if I can have a copy then I will talk to the Board about

those changes?

CHAIRPERSON: Could you make copies available to Dr Civil and Ms Vella

as well please? 40

DR FISHER: Appearing as a witness for you I have reread the Operational

Water Assessment Report and noticed two errors that I wanted to bring

to the Board’s attention.

45

Page 932


The first one relates to an inconsistency in how changes in peak flows

through the project are reported. The correct results are in table 1 and

the results in table 1 were summarised in my evidence-in-chief so the

evidence-in-chief is unchanged. It was just the text that explains the

table 1 was not updated to reflect the latest numbers in that table. 5

CHAIRPERSON: What is the significance of these bolded bits, are the words

put in or the corrections?

MS BROSNAHAN: Sorry, sir, that is when we pulled one page out of the 10

report to make the amendments the error reference source not found, is

that the one you are speaking of?

CHAIRPERSON: Well I am just looking at the two pages you have put up and

all I am asking is where we have got these figures which have been 15

changed like the third line 0.13 becomes 0.16 and then towards the

bottom of that section there is a big no bolded and then criteria and then

error reference source not found, what is all this stuff?

DR FISHER: Yes, perhaps I can explain. Taking for example on the third 20

line the new value is 0.16 percent, the old value which is struck out is

0.13 percent.

CHAIRPERSON: I understand that, Dr Fisher, but my question is what is the

bolded bit, you know the bits bolded, so we have got no, criterion, error 25

exclamation mark, reference source not found, what is all this stuff?

DR FISHER: Sir, no underlined, that was in the original text so that is

unchanged but it seems in printing this the word document has added

some extra text which is the error reference source not found so the 30

cross-referencing to the table has got confused when this document was

printed.

CHAIRPERSON: Was criterion bolded in the original text?

35

DR FISHER: Yes, it was.

[2.04 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: Was there one thing or two things which you assessed? 40

DR FISHER: Can you repeat the question, sir?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, where you’ve got “criterion (2)” were you assessment

one thing or two things? 45

Page 933


DR FISHER: That refers to a criterion that’s listed on the previous page, so

there’s a criterion 1 that’s assessed and that refers to a criterion 2 that’s

assessed.

CHAIRPERSON: All right, thank you. 5

DR FISHER: And the contents of those are on the previous page of the report.

CHAIRPERSON: Right. Yes.

10

DR FISHER: Sorry for that confusion. It looks like in printing this document

the word - - -

CHAIRPERSON: So we can put a line through – error, reference source not

found, can we? 15

DR FISHER: If you could please.

MS BROSNAHAN: It actually should read, sir, in the original which will be

in your binders, tabled 23. So it shouldn’t have changed, it was just 20

when we pulled one page out of the document and printed it, it’s

obviously lost its hyperlink, which is what causes the error. But in

your original documentation, if you slip this in, it’s only the

amendments in the first two paragraphs I understand that Dr Fisher has

noted. 25

CHAIRPERSON: All right.

MS BROSNAHAN: And the second page, Dr Fisher?

30

DR FISHER: Yes, the second page is labelled as table 3, but it refers to page

144 in the Operational Water Assessment report, so the correct number

for that table is table 30. The corrections here again are the underlined

text which replaces the struck out text. So what I noticed when I read

this in preparation for being a witness, was that the column headings 35

are referred to levels, whereas as actually it should have been depth,

and that led to the corrections to the column headings, that’s the six and

seventh columns, and also a carry through correction to the footnote

number 2, which should refer to depth rather than levels.

40

So I just wanted to bring those to your attention to try and avoid

confusion.

MS BROSNAHAN: In addition to your evidence, you were also involved in

witness conferencing and have signed two expert conferencing joint 45

witness statements to the Board of Inquiry, Construction, Water

Page 934


Management, Erosion and Sediment Control, dated the 10th and 12th

of March.

DR FISHER: Yes, I have.

5

MS BROSNAHAN: Can you please confirm for the Board that your evidence

is true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?

DR FISHER: Yes.

10

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. Now further to your evidence and the

conferencing statements, have you attended any facilitative meetings?

DR FISHER: Ah, yes, I have. I attended three facilitative meetings with

submitters, including the Lee(ph 3.22) Family Trust, the grouping of 15

residents in the Carran Road sector, including Dr Civil and Mr Fish of

the Pūhoi area, and I also attended a facilitative meeting the

Department of Conservation.

In those meetings, particularly with the lay parties, it was useful for me 20

to be there because I could communicate the technical intent of the

project, and also they were able to put questions to me. It was

particularly worthwhile meeting with Mr Fish, he had real concerns

about any works that would occur in the Pūhoi flood plain, he was

concerned about planting or temporary works, and that blockage of the 25

flood plain would cause their property to flood more. So were able to

put in place, or offer a condition of consent to the designation for

restricted in the area, so I think that that’s an example of where those

facilitative meetings have been beneficial.

30

MS BROSNAHAN: And you mentioned Dr Civil, were you here when Dr

Civil provided her evidence?

DR FISHER: No, I wasn’t.

35

[2.09 pm]

MS BROSNAHAN: Have you had a chance to review the transcript?

DR FISHER: Yes, I have reviewed the transcript. 40

MS BROSNAHAN: And when Dr Civil was giving her evidence, she referred

to the plan that was attached to your rebuttal, I think that will be up on

the screen shortly.

45

Would you be able to explain that plan?

Page 935


DR FISHER: Yes, I am happy to do that.

I think that is figure 44 attached to my rebuttal evidence, annexure A.

So this figure shows changes in water levels for the hundred year event 5

as a result of the project. I thought if the Board was amenable to it

before talking to this, I might talk to the flood patterns in this area to

explain the existing situation before I talk to the change, so if we could

look at figure 18 in the Operational Water Assessment Report, that is

on page 93. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Page 93 of what, what are we looking at Ms Brosnahan?

MS BROSNAHAN: The Operational Water assessment Report, but, sir,

Dr Fisher asked if you would like him to do this, he was just going to 15

explain the flooding in the area - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Well he is your witness, it is a question of whether you

want him to, you know, you put him to annexure A and he says, well

before I talk about that I perhaps should talk about something else. 20

You are controlling him, it is a question of whether you think that is

going to be helpful.

MS BROSNAHAN: I think it would be helpful.

25

CHAIRPERSON: And he is answering questions, he is not having a

colloquium.

MS BROSNAHAN: Yes, sir, I think it would be helpful to the Board to

understand that flooding. 30

CHAIRPERSON: All right.

MS BROSNAHAN: So he is pointing you to the Operational Water

Assessment Report which was provided as part of the application. 35

DR FISHER: So figure 18 on page 93.

MS BROSNAHAN: It will also appear on the screen, sir.

40

DR FISHER: I thought it would be useful for the Board if I could explain the

flood patterns that occur in this area.

So the river in the top of the screen that flows across State Highway 1

is the Mahurangi left branch. It flows through and joins the right 45

branch of the Mahurangi which is the deep water that comes in at the

Page 936


bottom of the page. This figure shows the hundred year flood plain for

the existing situation, it doesn’t show - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Which way are these two branches flowing, where is the

sea, at the bottom of the picture? 5

DR FISHER: The sea is to the east and so the Mahurangi main river flows out

across - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Just tell me where the sea is or in the picture please, on the 10

screen.

DR FISHER: Yes.

MS BROSNAHAN: To the right. 15

DR FISHER: Am I able to stand up and point to the screen?

MS BROSNAHAN: I think sir, we are trying to get a pointer.

20

CHAIRPERSON: If you find that left, right, top or bottom alludes you by all

means.

DR FISHER: Right, so the exit point for the Mahurangi River, can you see

my cursor. The exit point for the Mahurangi River is here, beyond the 25

edge of the page the river flows through Warkworth and then flows

past the Warkworth town basin and out to the Mahurangi Harbour off

the page.

The Mahurangi River has two main tributaries at this point, it has the 30

right branch which comes in from the bottom of the page here, and it

has the left branch which starts up above the state highway and flows

down through Kaipara Flats Road, it goes past Woodcocks Road under

the proposed motorway alignment, joins in with the Mahurangi right

branch at this location and then flows out to the sea. 35

This map shows existing flooding for the hundred year annual

recurrence interval flood. The dark blue are flood depths of two metres

or more so there is deep flooding, there is also quite extensive flooding

so you will note that for the existing situation for this hundred year 40

event that does include climate change, there is flooding across the

state highway and there is flooding across the Kaipara Flats Road, there

is flooding across parts of Woodcocks Road and so forth.

Page 937


[2.14 pm]

A critical aspect of the flooding is that for floods that are probably in

excess of a one year flood, flooding leads the left branch of the

Mahurangi River where I am pointing, and flows up the valley adjacent 5

to the alignment of the motorway and comes round the corner and into

this creek that flows behind Hudson Road.

That creek then flows down and rejoins the Mahurangi River

downstream of Falls Road. 10

Normally the water patterns in this valley are for water to flow from a

midpoint north and from that midpoint, south, where there are farm

drains that do that. But as Dr Civil has explained in her evidence and

before the Board, very usefully, the flooding comes out of the river and 15

comes up the valley in one direction north, and that occurs every year.

To some extent we have looked at the event that occurred in

Anniversary Weekend 2011 which was about a 20 year event which

flowed up the valley and had a depth of over a metre.

20

For the hundred year event, the depths in this overland flow path are

anywhere between one metre in the midpoint where I am pointing,

whereas back towards the Mahurangi River, the depths are sort of two

to three metres.

25

And this is quite a broad, slow moving, overland flow path that triggers

because the water level in the Mahurangi left branch of the river

exceeds the bank level and starts to flow this way.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you able to tell us from your research into the history 30

and patterns of this river and its two branches, when was the last

hundred year event?

DR FISHER: There hasn’t been a hundred year event recorded to my

knowledge, not based on the flow rating data, there is a flow gauge 35

adjacent to Mahurangi College, that is just downstream and off the

page and so that has a flow record that we have looked at, a hundred

year event hasn’t been recorded on that, but based on the flows that

have been recorded, we can estimate what a hundred year flow is at that

location. 40

We have got some confidence about the activation of this overland

flow path because of the observations of residents including the useful

information provided by Dr Civil and the information that we got on

site from the farm manager about the depth of flooding for that event of 45

Page 938


Anniversary Weekend 2011 which was a depth over the fence posts, so

a depth of just over a metre for the 20 year event.

CHAIRPERSON: How long has this flow metre been in place and how far

back do its records go? 5

DR FISHER: I don’t recall the details of that flow measure, sorry, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you able to assist us over the last 50 years, since about

say, 1964, what has been the greatest level inundation with these two 10

branches of the river?

DR FISHER: The largest event that I am aware of is the Anniversary 2011

event which was about the 20 year return period. That was an event,

you may recall, that it came down the Northland and Auckland East 15

Coast, it caused landslides in Waiheke and I this area too.

CHAIRPERSON: How do you know there wasn’t a similar event in say,

1957, or 1968 or 1974?

20

DR FISHER: There may well have been, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: So when you say this is the last event of which I am aware,

that is really the sum total of your knowledge of the history of this

river. Is that right? 25

DR FISHER: We have looked at the flow record at the Mahurangi gauge at

the Mahurangi College and understand this to be the largest event that

has been recorded at that gauge.

30

CHAIRPERSON: Right, but you don’t know when this gauge was installed?

DR FISHER: We had looked at that in the preparation of technical information

but I don’t have that information at hand, sir.

35

[2.19 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: Does the gauge work on the basis that it records the volume

of water flowing past in the river, is that how it works?

40

DR FISHER: The gauge will work by recording the water level in the river,

sir.

CHAIRPERSON: The water level at the gauge?

45

Page 939


DR FISHER: It will record the water level, and there will be a corresponding

relationship between water level and flow to calculate what the

corresponding flow is

CHAIRPERSON: Now I’ve got no expertise in this area at all, Dr Fisher, but 5

would I be right that this sort of river, particularly the areas you’ve

shown us being very close to the coast, at periods of incoming tide,

second half and high tide, drainage from the rivers into the sea would

probably cease, is that right?

10

DR FISHER: The tidal boundary can be an effect on lowland rivers. This

location is sufficiently far upstream and high enough that it isn’t. The

tidal extents on the Mahurangi River stops at the weir that is located in

the Warkworth town centre.

15

CHAIRPERSON: So the weir prevents any tide coming further up, is that

right?

DR FISHER: That’s correct.

20

CHAIRPERSON: All right. So the two branches of the river and their draining

capacity are not in any way dependent on tide fluxes?


25

CHAIRPERSON: That’s helpful. Yes, Ms Brosnahan, what do you want him

to talk about next?

MS BROSNAHAN: Yes, sir. Dr Fisher, can I take you back to annexure A of

your rebuttal evidence. I’d asked you if you might explain that 30

drawing.

DR FISHER: Yes, so having explained the existing flood situation, I think

this figure is easier to understand. This figure shows a zoomed in area

of the project that Carran Road sector specifically, so we have 35

Woodcocks and Wiley Road in this area, and the top of the project with

the roundabout you can see up there. This again is for the 100 year

annual recurrence interval event with climate change.

What is showing though is the water level difference between post-40

development minus pre-development water levels. So we modelled the

project, we modelled the flood extents with the key aspects of the

projects in place, so namely they are the Carran Road flood relief

bridge, and they are the Woodcocks Road viaduct. So both of those

waterway crossing obstruct the flood plain to some extent. So we ran 45

the model with those structures in place and simulated a maximum

Page 940


water level, and we subtracted that maximum water level from the

maximum water level for the existing situation without the project.

I just might say that the model that we used is an Auckland Council

Rapid Flood Hazard model, it has a resolution in the flood plain of 5

about 12 metres square, it’s used by council for flood management

purposes. They would subsequently refine this model for more detailed

analysis. So just going back to the figure where there is yellow, there

are changes – there are increases in water level due to the project of

between 0.5 to 0.1 metres and when there is green there are decreases 10

in water levels due to the project.

Everywhere that is blue the flooding is unchanged due to the project.

So the areas that are blue there are actually differences in the range of

.05 to .05 negative, so that’s the accuracy of the model. So I can’t 15

ascertain whether there are flood differences in these areas, or to put it

a better way there aren’t flood differences in the areas that are blue.

[2.24 pm]

20

So, the main effects of the project are the yellow areas where there is

increases in flood depth that are up to 0.1 of a metre so they occur

upstream of the Carran Road Flood Bridge and in the vicinity of the

Woodcocks Road viaduct and downstream of that.

25

The effect of the project is also to restrict some flow that would normally

go up through over that flow path and as a result the water levels in this

vicinity are lower as indicated by the green but by the time you get back

down to where that overlap flow path rejoins the Mahurangi River, you

get back to a situation where there is no change in water levels. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Very simply can you explain to us why the project would

cause a rise in the yellow areas and a drop in the green area?

DR FISHER: Yes, sir, both the bridges restrict the flood plain to differing 35

degrees. The Woodcocks Road viaduct despite it being 280 metres

long does have one of its abutments just into the flood plain that causes

some restriction and Carran Road Flood Relief Bridge has a span of 60

metres but also has abutments to a greater extent into the flood plain.

40

That causes the flow to be constricted as it is restricted it increases in

elevation upstream of the bridge which is called an afflux upstream of

the bridge. That in turn causes the flow that is entering this over land

flow path to be less than what it otherwise would because the water at

the stream bank sensing that there is a higher water level downstream 45

but due to the bridge splits in a different way so actually less water

Page 941


goes though the Carran Road Flood Relief bridge and slightly more

goes down the Mahurangi River.

The more water in the Mahurangi River causes these increases as show

in yellow in the figure under the Woodcocks Road viaduct. 5

MR CHANDLER: So if the Carran Street bridge actually spanned the flood

plain then you would not have a build-up on the upstream side?

DR FISHER: You would have a reduced build up, you would still have some 10

piers in the waterway.

MR CHANDLER: No, I am talking about if spanning the floodway so that no

piers were within your indicated floodway?

15

DR FISHER: If the Carran Road Flood Relief bridge spanned the full flood

plain and it would be need to be more than 200 metres long to do that

and did not have any piers there would not be any change in the effect.

MR CHANDLER: If it spanned the floodway you would not get the build so 20

it would not act as a throttle?

DR FISHER: That is correct.

MR CHANDLER: Thank you. 25

CHAIRPERSON: Are you still with Tonkin and Taylor incidentally?

DR FISHER: Yes, I am sir.

30

MR WITHY: Can I just ask for some clarification on that? I just am

struggling to see how you can predict with your model such fine

changes in water levels when the way the project has been put to us is

that the contractor has a great deal of flexibility in the final design?

35

DR FISHER: Yes, this assessment is based on the indicative design so in this

existing hydraulic model we built and the changes to the flood plain

which is predominantly the embankments of the motorway that enter

the flood plain and so we are able to simulate what the effect of this

indicative design is. 40

That has enabled us to assess that there is an effect of up to 0.1 metre of

afflux upstream of the bridge and based on that we have set a condition

limiting the afflux to 0.1 of a metre. If a designer in the future decides

to change the configuration of the bridge to lengthen it or shorten it, 45

they would have to achieve the same sorts of performance, and so no

Page 942


doubt they will try and optimise the alignment or that bridge

configuration. That they may do it in other ways too, that they could

do some shaping of the ground to try to achieve a similar performance

outcome.

5

[2.29 pm]

So we’ve assessed an indicative design in quite a lot of detail, but I

recognise that somebody in the future will probably change the design,

so that’s why we’re trying to put a condition in place that limit the 10

effects of that change to what we’ve assessed.

MR WITHY: Can you help me with where to find that condition?

DR FISHER: Yes, I can. So the condition is condition 68C and this is in the 15

consent conditions dated the 10th of April 2014.

MS BROSNAHAN: Sir, the number that didn’t change in the 25th of April

version.

20

MR WITHY: So what’s the new number?

MS BROSNAHAN: It did not change, so still 68C.

DR FISHER: 68C. 25

MS BROSNAHAN: And the resource consent, not the designation.

MR WITHY: Resource consents, okay, I’ve got that folder.

30

DR FISHER: So that condition says “any increase in flood levels of more

than 100 mls when neither A or B above apply”, in particular that

relates to condition A, which says “flooding of habitable floor levels

where pre-development modelling indicates pre-project that there is no

such flooding in the two, five, 10, 20, 50 and a 100 year events. 35

MR WITHY: Thank you.

MS BROSNAHAN: Dr Fisher, when you were discussing the plan and talking

of the colours, point 1 or 100 millimetres is the greatest increase that 40

you’ve predicted, what does that look like on the ground?

CHAIRPERSON: What does 10 centimetres look like on the ground

vertically?

45

Page 943


MS BROSNAHAN: Floodwater, sir, and the expanse it might take up. I

understood that on top of the flooding that is already present, you’re

mentioning 100 mls - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Oh, I’m with you, yes. 5

MS BROSNAHAN: - - - can you explain what that might, as an effect, you

mentioned more than two metres earlier.

DR FISHER: So in the area immediately upstream of the Carran Road flood 10

relief bridge, I’ll point to that, if I get my pointer to work – no.

MS BROSNAHAN: Perhaps describe it, is it the yellow area?

DR FISHER: So the yellow area immediately upstream of the Carran Road 15

flood relief bridge, the water depth there for the 100 year events are

between two metres and three metres deep at the deepest. So a 100 ml

increase in water level depth is just a five percent increase in flood

depth.

20

The nature of the valley is that it has quite a broad flat base to it, and

then you reach the sides of the valley and the slopes extend upwards

beyond that, so flooding for the 20 year event has been observed,

covers the valley floor, for the 100 year events will cover the valley

floor and creep higher. But because there are the side walls of the 25

valley the extent doesn’t change too much. So if the side slopes of the

valley are one vertical to five horizontal say, then a 100 ml increase in

flood depth will correspond to just a half a metre increase in width, so

it’s an increase in width or flood extent due to this 100 mls is quite

limited. 30

MR CHANDLER: So a 20 year event would actually put the flood way bridge

into operation, the flood way under the motorway?

DR FISHER: Yes, it would, and Dr Civil in her testimony in front of the 35

Board, from her observations on the farm also said that this flood way

operates in a one to two year event too. From a one to two year event

up to the 20, up to the 100, this floodway operates and starts and

accepts water from the Mahurangi left branch and sends it north before

it circles back around. The thing that changes of course with the larger 40

flood events is that the depth increases.

[2.34 pm]

MR CHANDLER: So under no circumstances, would it not be prudent to put 45

a cattle underpass under the project so that the farmer could move stock

Page 944


from one side to the other in the event of this fairly frequent flooding

occurrence?

DR FISHER: Under the Carran Road Flood Relief bridge there is provision

for a underpass. 5

MR CHANDLER: That is through floodwater.

DR FISHER: Yes, it is. If I can refer you to the drawing of that bridge cross

section it will help to explain how that operates so this is the Carran 10

Road Flood Relief bridge as it is proposed. It has three spans, each are

22 metres long. It has an effective span of 60 metres because of the

piers so the waterway which is just a ditch essentially for farm

drainage.

15

It is through the centre the cattle access way is on the right hand side as

you look at the screen. It is raised above the low lying pasture that

activates as a floodway but the top level of it is below the 100 year

flood depth by a depth of I think 0.75 of a metre.

20

MR CHANDLER: It is under water?

DR FISHER: For the 100 year event it is under water by 0.75 of a metre, that

is right.

25

MR PARSONSON: What storm could Mrs Civil still pass stock through that

floodway bridge, what size storm, what size flood event?

MR FISHER: We have not assessed what the annual recurrence interval of

that event would be. 30

MR PARSONSON: How will she gain some assurance that this will satisfy

her concerns about access if we do not know whether it will even

service a one year event?

35

DR FISHER: It maybe that during this sort of event that this is not the only

way for stock to leave the flooded areas.

MR PARSONSON: What would be the alternative?

40

DR FISHER: It is my understanding that from the project alliance that the

areas that are within the designation will be controlled by NZTA. That

largely contains the floodway area that only leaves some pastoral areas

to the south east and those areas have dry lands outside the flood plain

so the stock could retreat into those if those areas of the farm were still 45

operating as a pasture.

Page 945


MR CHANDLER: Is that location of that stock route more appropriately sited

on that side of the bridge or more appropriate on the other side of

bridge bearing in mind that flood map that you showed us earlier?

5

DR FISHER: I think the Agency and I would not see any disadvantage in it

being located on one side or the other.

MR CHANDLER: In other words to transport the stock in times of flood you

really need a cattle underpass further to the, what would it be, the south 10

of the Carran Street floodway near where that landscaped area is within

the red dotted lines?

DR FISHER: What I was alluding to before was that for stock to exit this area

they can move to higher ground adjacent to the floodway. That would 15

be the quickest I would have thought and most prudent areas for the

stock to move to.

CHAIRPERSON: You told us before that the reason why we have got this

increase of about 0.1 metre in the areas which you shaded yellow 20

which you say could be 0.1 metre on top of – and I didn’t understand

you to contest Dr Civil’s evidence, on top of flood depth of 2 to 3

metres, was because of abutments?

[2.39 pm] 25

DR FISHER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, where are these abutments, I couldn’t see any on the

diagram you had of the Carran Road Flood Bridge, what sort of 30

abutment are we talking about, which is going to divert water to that

extent, and ditto when we go further back to the Woodcocks Road

viaduct?

DR FISHER: Yes. So this figure shows the bridge. The bridge is the grey or 35

white component in the centre of the figure - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Which is shown below with its four piers?

DR FISHER: That’s correct. 40

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR FISHER: Now the abutments are these earth fills that extend into the

flood plains, so there’s one on the left – or the true left and there’s one 45

on the true right that’s in the direction of the flow. And so if we're able

Page 946


to go back to the previous figure, at a larger scale you can see how they

extend into the flood plain, from the - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Just run your curser along please.

5

DR FISHER: So there’s one of them, so that’s along the southern side - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR FISHER: - - - and then on the northern side, it’s this area here. So they 10

extend into the floodway and constrict the flow through the 60 metre

wide bridge span.

CHAIRPERSON: So what is the total meterage or length of these abutments

which are going to cause this increase in flood levels? 15

DR FISHER: The total length of the road as it crosses the flood plain, at this

particular angle, is over 200 metres, so less – the 60 metres for the

bridge, so there’s a total extension of at least 140 metres, probably a bit

more. 20

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. So total?

DR FISHER: So the total is 140 metres plus, if I just can go to my - - -

25

CHAIRPERSON: You can give me a ballpark if you want.

DR FISHER: A hundred and – can I find it in my evidence, sir?

DISCUSSION 30

DR FISHER: Sir, the length of the bridge span to fully span the floodway at

that angle, is 260 metres, so less 60 metres of the bridge span means

that the abutments are 200 metres in length into the flood plain, so

some of that 200 is on the north, some of it’s on the south. 35

CHAIRPERSON: If the Carran’s Road Flood Relief Bridge was longer by 200

metres or thereabouts, would this problem of increased flood level go

away?

40

DR FISHER: The longer the open span of the bridge the greater the decrease

in upstream water level difference would be, that’s correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Have you any information as to how long when this flood,

valley floods, how long the waters stay there before they dissipate, in 45

your hypothetical hundred year or 50 year storm?

Page 947


DR FISHER: The hypothetical or the design storm that we used has a rainfall

that’s spread over 24 hours, and so the water level will come up for a

good proportion of that time and take some time to drain away. So it

would be - - - 5

CHAIRPERSON: Some time I’m interested in, how long?

DR FISHER: It would be in the order of 24 hours, sir.

10

CHAIRPERSON: So you’re looking at inundation of two days or may be a bit

more, two days anyway.

DR FISHER: So that’s the current level of flooding that occurs and the

project will change that, only by a very minor amount. 15

[2.44 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: And you don’t think this extra increase in height, or do you

think this extra increase in flood height which the abutments are going 20

to cause, is going to keep the water in place for longer?

DR FISHER: A very minor change in duration.

CHAIRPERSON: Right. 25

MR PARSONSON: Could we go back to the drawing that shows the various

changes in flood level?

Dr Fisher, the area shown in green, is indicated as a decrease in flood 30

levels post construction. Is that correct?

DR FISHER: Yes.

MR PARSONSON: Can you give us an indication of, or do you know the 35

likely depth of decrease?

DR FISHER: We have that information in our models, but we haven’t focused

on it because we focused on the negative effects of the project but it

would be of the order of 100 mils or less. 40

MR PARSONSON: So a similar order to the types of increases we are looking

at. And so laterally, horizontally on the ground, depending on

topography of that area that you are a little bit familiar with, what

would you anticipate there would be a reduction in flooding through 45

that area?

Page 948


DR FISHER: It would be a similar order to what we see upstream on the

bridge, so 100 mils vertical and a water level would equate to half a

metre to a metre of lateral extent, so you would see that reduction in

flood extent downstream of the bridge. It would correspond to the 5

increase in flood width upstream of the bridge.

MR PARSONSON: So based on your assessment then, and notwithstanding

any effects on access during flooding under the flood bridge, there will

be a reduced footprint of flooding on the Civil property and other 10

properties along that overland flow path to the east of the proposed

motorway?

DR FISHER: That would be, on balance, be true, for the three Civil properties,

there are the other areas in the vicinity of Woodcocks Road Viaduct 15

where we do have increases so there is a greater extent there.

MR PARSONSON: Yes.

DR FISHER: But if you are looking at the balance between increases and 20

decreases and the edge length of the greenness versus the edge length

of the yellow, they are of a similar order.

MR PARSONSON: Would it have been possible to, or would it be possible to

design the project to not change flooding? 25

DR FISHER: We designed it to avoid and mitigate as much as I thought was

reasonable and so we did that by changing the alignment of the

motorway and then by working on this Carran Road Flood Relief

Bridge. We started with a bridge design that had a total span of 28 30

metres and that caused an afflux and increase in water level upstream

of the bridge of 250 mils and we didn’t think that that was acceptable

so we more than doubled the length of the bridge to 60 metres and got

to this level of effect which is less than a 100 mils and in my

experience, less than a 100 mils afflux upstream of a bridge is a very 35

small amount for this sort of structure.

So based on my experience, I thought it was the best practical option

for this floodway.

40

MR PARSONSON: Would it be possible to design and construct the project

to avoid flooding, changes in flooding?

DR FISHER: If you created a bridge span that was – a bridge that was 260

metres in length, you would still need to have bridge piers through the 45

waterway, so there would still be some effect from that crossing

Page 949


upstream, so we don’t think you could. That would be a smaller

upstream effect but there would still be a minor effect.

MR PARSONSON: And what about around the Woodcocks Road Viaduct

area, would it be possible to achieve no change through that area? 5

DR FISHER: Again, even if you span the flood plain in its entirety, you would

still have piers in the waterways so there would still be a small increase

in head loss and an upstream increase in water level.

10

[2.49 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: It would be small, wouldn’t it?

DR FISHER: It would be small. 15

CHAIRPERSON: And when the water starts to move it just bypasses the piers,

rushes down both sides of it, it is not blocked off?

DR FISHER: But as it goes through a waterway that has piers, it has to 20

accelerate to go round those piers and in doing so, it loses some energy

and so to get that water through the bridge waterway, it has to increase

slightly on the upstream extent, so any obstruction in a waterway will

lead to some - - -

25

CHAIRPERSON: Let’s cut to the chase on that. Looking at that map in front

of you and the yellow areas where you say the level of flood waters, as

a result of the abutments, point one of a metre higher. If the highway

spanned the entire floodplain, would those yellow areas disappear from

your map and projections? 30

DR FISHER: Flood differences would be – flood level differences would be

sub 5 percent metres, they would be less than point 05 so the yellow

areas would disappear. They would only be left with a very small

levels in flood levels, almost negligible. 35

MR CHANDLER: Can we come back, Dr Fisher, to the rain gauge at

Mahurangi College? Is that a gauge that records intensities of

downpours, precipitation?

40

CHAIRPERSON: Is it a rain gauge or a flood gauge?

MR CHANDLER: This is a rain gauge.

CHAIRPERSON: It is a rain gauge. 45

Page 950


MR CHANDLER: A rain gauge. I understood there was a rain gauge as

distinct from a flood gauge at Mahurangi College. Is that correct?

DR FISHER: The gauge at Mahurangi College is a flow gauge.

5

MR CHANDLER: A flood gauge?

DR FISHER: A flow gauge.

MR CHANDLER: A flow gauge. 10

DR FISHER: So it measures the flow in the river. There are rainfall gauges in

Warkworth and at the satellite station in the catchment that we have

used as recording rainfall data.

15

MR CHANDLER: And they record intensities?

DR FISHER: They record rainfall intensities, yes, that’s correct.

MR CHANDLER: Where did you get the rainfall intensity from to use in 20

your flood calculations?

DR FISHER: There are two methods or data sources that are widely used.

One is the Auckland Regional Council, TPAs, the TP108 method, there

is also a NIWA Birds database, and there is also the rainfall records at 25

Warkworth and at the satellite station.

We looked at all three of those rainfall data sets and we took the

highest of them which was the TP108 analysis, and the TP108

methodology shows that the rainfall grades from the south to the north, 30

so the rainfall at the north of the catchment is the highest, and we took

the highest of the rainfall in the catchment for the TP 108 method

which was the highest of the three data sources that we had, and then

we added climate change to that and we extended climate change out to

2120 which is 100 years beyond the estimated completion date of the 35

project.

MR CHANDLER: So you didn’t actually use an intensity within the

catchment as a basis for your calculations?

40

DR FISHER: We used a method that derived rainfall data based on all the

regional rain gauges and that TP 108 method, we checked against the

rainfall records in the catchment that were at Warkworth and at

satellite, and the method that we used produced higher rainfall than the

rainfall intensities from those two rain gauges. 45

Page 951


MR CHANDLER: But you didn’t actually use, as a basis, an intensity from a

gauge within the catchment?

DR FISHER: No we didn’t, but we used rainfall that was higher - - -

5

MR CHANDLER: You just used - - -

DR FISHER: - - - if not conservative.

MR CHANDLER: You used surrogate gauges from around to get an 10

indication that you thought might be representative of the catchment?

[2.54 pm]

DR FISHER: We use the established Auckland method and we checked 15

against the local gauges and found that the numbers that we were using

were and therefore more conservative so we are very comfortable in

using it.

MR CHANDLER: For example in the Auckland isthmus I understand that the 20

rainfall in Point Chevalier is considerably greater than the rainfall in

Remuera and they are not very far apart. Now the rain gauge at

Warkworth would be presumably is outside the catchment that we are

dealing with, would that be correct?

25

DR FISHER: It is in the lower part of the catchment so that is correct.

MR CHANDLER: There would be quite a distance between it and the upper

parts of the catchment, particularly if we are looking over towards the

Myer Hill area? 30

DR FISHER: That is one of the reasons why you use a method like TP108

because it takes all rainfall gauges in the region and tries to work out

the spatial patterns of how rainfall intensely changes spatially so you

do try and get those gradients and so the TP108 method shows that as 35

you go north, the rainfall intensities increase.

MR CHANDLER: I understand that but primarily you are using information

outside of the catchment to determine rainfall within the catchment

primarily? 40

DR FISHER: Yes, but there are two gauges within the catchment.

MR CHANDLER: I understand that the farmer has the rain gauge, the Civil’s

farm has a rain gauge were you aware of that? 45

Page 952


DR FISHER: I have read that in Dr Civil’s evidence.

MR CHANDLER: Was that of any assistance to you at all?

DR FISHER: It was useful and indicated that the anniversary weekend flood 5

on 2011 had a rainfall intensity on her property of over 150 mls in 24

hours.

MR CHANDLER: Which was greater than the Warkworth gauge?

10

DR FISHER: I do not recall that, sir but it did indicate that of the events that

she talked about in her evidence it was the largest event so it gave me

some confidence that was an event that we had assessed the return

period of that it was a good one to look at in terms of confirming what

this model was telling us. 15

MR CHANDLER: Thank you.

MR PARSONSON: Dr Fisher, have you made your assessment of the

appropriateness of a scale of effect on the Civil property, particularly to 20

the east alignment on the basis that the NZTA would own or control the

land within their designation?

DR FISHER: No, one related to that is I looked at properties that were already

in the flood plain. There were four dwellings that were already at risk 25

of flooding when we looked at the change in flood risk to those and

coming up with that number we did exclude one property that was

inside the designation.

MR PARSONSON: You just made a comment I think earlier regarding the 30

potential for effects on moving stock in the event of a flood and you

commented that and correct me if I am wrong I think you commented

that the area to the north of the flood bridge was within the designation

and I wonder what relevance that had to your assessment?

35

DR FISHER: It has not been part of the assessment that is reported in my

evidence and operational water assessment report. It is an issue that

has become apparent to me in reading the transcripts of Dr Civil’s

submissions and in talking to NZTA I was advised that it was a

reasonable assumption that the land was in the designation would be 40

controlled by NZTA and the activities in it are controlled by NZTA.

That is the basis for the statements.

MR CHANDLER: Just one further question Dr Fisher about condition 68C

which talks about the concerned holder restricting increase in flood 45

levels, not more than 100 mm there.

Page 953


[2.59 pm]

DR FISHER: Yes.

5

MR CHANDLER: Do you think that is enforceable?

DR FISHER: Yes, I do, it relies on the part of the condition that underlies

68C, which is “compliance with this condition shall be demonstrated

by hydrological and hydraulic model”. That remains the only way to 10

assess the effect is for the design that’s developed and finalised, a

hydrological and hydraulic model that’s likely to be more sophisticated

than the model that’s used in this assessment is developed to

demonstrate to Auckland Council as part of this condition that this

condition is met. I’m comfortable that that’s a sound way to prove that 15

the 100 mls can be achieved.

MR CHANDLER: Now we’ve established that you were unable to use a

rainfall intensity that actually occurred with the catchment for your

modelling, you’re using a surrogate intensity, so how can you be sure 20

or how could the consent holder be sure that 68C is in fact an

enforceable condition when the basis on which it is formed could be in

doubt.

DR FISHER: My assessment and this compliance requirement requires that 25

the existing situation be modelled, and then with the project situation to

be modelled, so it’s the difference between the ‘with project’ and

‘without project’ that we’re looking at, and so the same assumptions

are around rainfall intensity are in both models. And so if the rainfall

that you use in both models is slightly higher or slightly lower the 30

difference between the models is what matters, and the only way that

you achieve that difference is by the changes of the project. So I

believe that it’s a workable condition, and this provides a satisfactory

proof.

35

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Fisher, you haven’t in respect answered directly

Mr Chandler’s question. My suggestion to you is that condition 68 is

at best aspirational, and you’ve had the RMA experience before,

haven’t you?

40

DR FISHER: Yes, I have, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Well the consent holder shall ensure, that’s mandatory, and

number C, any increase in this level we’re talking about of more than

100 millimetres, et cetera, et cetera. Now, how can that possibly be 45

enforced? What are we going to do if it gets up to double that level –

Page 954


we order that the motorway be dynamited, how on earth can this be

enforceable? I suggest it’s no more than aspirational.

DR FISHER: So this should be proven before the final designers - - -

5

CHAIRPERSON: How do you prove it?

DR FISHER: You prove it with a hydraulic model, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: 100 percent guaranteed this model will work and the water 10

downstream is never going to be more than 100 millimetres above

current levels?

DR FISHER: We use these sorts of - - -

15

CHAIRPERSON: You’d make your fortune if you had a model like that,

surely.

DR FISHER: We use these sorts of models, such as in the Waterview

Connection project where changes to Oakley Creek had been made, 20

and they’re significant changes over several kilometres of creek,

including realignments and new bridges, and that project has a

condition requiring that the flood changes be proven by hydraulic

model, and that’s been done to the satisfaction of Auckland Council.

The hydraulic model remains the only way to prove the level of effects, 25

it is similar to what’s been assessed.

MR PARSONSON: Dr Fisher, is it possible to slightly reword the condition

to say that the consent holder shall design the measures to achieve a),

b) and c) based on an agreed hydrologic and hydraulic model? 30

DR FISHER: Yes, I would support that.

MR CHANDLER: Just coming back to rain gauges, Dr Fisher, do you think

the installation of a recording rain gauge within the catchment would 35

be of assistance in implementing condition 68, in a realistic way?

[3.04 pm]

DR FISHER: For a rain gauge to be - - - 40

MR CHANDLER: I’m talking about an automatic recording gauge, not just a

pot type gauge.

DR FISHER: Yes. So for the construction phase of the project, a rain gauge 45

will be put in place because it helps to manage sediments and erosion

Page 955


control. But for the prediction of a hundred year ARI rainfall event, you

need a rain gauge that’s been in place for, ideally more than 30 years,

otherwise your duration isn’t long enough to catch a significant large

event.

5

So if we put one in – so if we did put one in place now that was close to

a key location on the project and the project was built within a number

of years the duration of daily collection wouldn’t be long enough to add

meaningfully to the data set that already exists.

10

CHAIRPERSON: Just pause - - -

MR CHANDLER: Can we come – sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, can you just pause there for a moment. 15

Dr Civil, I want to ask you three questions and I just want you to give

me a very short answer to them, because this may influence the

questions which we ask Dr Fisher next, so “yes/no” and I don’t want

you to expand or expatiate. 20

First of all, you do have a rain gauge on this property, don’t you?

DR CIVIL: Yes, sir.

25

CHAIRPERSON: Secondly, is it what Mr Chandler kindly described as a

“pop type” gauge - - -

DR CIVIL: Yes.

30

CHAIRPERSON: - - - or is it something which has got calibrations on the

side of a tube or what?

DR CIVIL: It’s a tube, a standard rain gauge that anybody might have in their

garden, a tube with a - - - 35

CHAIRPERSON: All right. Thirdly, how often do the owners or the manager

of the property read this gauge?

DR CIVIL: After any rain event, sir. 40

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry?

DR CIVIL: After a rain event.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Only after a rain event?

Page 956


DR CIVIL: Yes, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Fourthly, have any records been kept?

5

DR CIVIL: Yes, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: For how far back?

DR CIVIL: I don’t know specifically but I would say probably going back 10

more than 30 years because Laurie’s been on the farm since 1979.

CHAIRPERSON: And they’re somewhere available in family archives?

DR CIVIL: Yes, certainly. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

Dr Fisher, this Civil family record were made available to you, would

that be of assistance to you, seeing it’s the only rain gauge which we 20

know about which is actually in the area we're concerned with?

DR FISHER: It would be of some use. It would give us some good

information. What would be a limitation with it, is that, from Dr Civil’s

description, it’s a rain gauge that fills up with a total volume in amount 25

of time.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR FISHER: The rain gauges that we base our rainfall statistics and analysis 30

on, work out, they capture the rainfall and measure it at small

increments of rainfall.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, small increments, yes.

35

DR FISHER: And so you’re able to work out what the 10 minute intensity of

rainfall is and the 15 minute and the 30 minute and an hour, so you’re

able to get a picture of that really high intensity rainfall.

CHAIRPERSON: But the records which could be provided from the Civil rain 40

gauge would give you total downpour on certain dates over certain

events, wouldn’t they, even though - - -

DR FISHER: They would be useful for that, sir.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Well that’s not useless information, is it?

Page 957


DR FISHER: It would be useful for - - -

CHAIRPERSON: And if this was provided or if we were to direct that this be

provided for you, would you be in a position to rework your 5

calculations?

DR FISHER: I would be able to use that data to compare what the 24 hour

rainfall duration totals were, so it would be useful.

10

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Chandler.

MR CHANDLER: Dr Fisher, on a map we had in front of us, of the flood

plain there was a part coloured green from the Carran Street Floodway

down towards Hudson Road, and I think you said that that represented 15

– that green area represented a lessening of the flooding beyond the

Carran Street Bridge towards, is it Hudson Road there, is that correct?

DR FISHER: That’s correct, it represents a decrease in floodwater level in that

area. 20

MR CHANDLER: Looking at condition 68B, there is a condition there,

talking about the flooding of a property which I understand is on the

corner of Hudson Road and State Highway 1 – condition 68B.

25

[3.09 pm]

DR FISHER: Yes, that’s correct.

MR CHANDLER: Was that Carran Street Food Bridge width designed with 30

a conscious reduction in the flooding downstream to be attained?

DR FISHER: No, it wasn’t.

MR CHANDLER: Bearing in mind particularly condition 68B? 35

DR FISHER: No, it wasn’t. The Carran Road Flood Relief Bridge was

developed, as I said previously, based on a 28 metre span bridge which

we increased to a 60 metre bridge to try and mitigate effects and all of

that occurred prior to the completion of the reports which then were 40

made available, which were then notified and it was only after

notification to the National Trading Company who have an interest in

that property, would look at these and voiced some concerns.

Page 958


Their concerns were quite broad. They were that the project shouldn’t

have any, or shouldn’t change or worsen the water levels or flooding

that currently occur on their site.

So going back to your question, the design of the Carran Road Flood 5

Relief Bridge was undertaken and assessed well before we had any

submissions or feedback from National Trading Company.

MR CHANDLER: So it is just a coincidence that the flood water downstream

levels are reduced and we have got a condition 68B talking about flood 10

levels of a property downstream?

DR FISHER: So the condition 68B has come about because National Trading

Company have consulted with us and wanted assurity around the flood

levels on their property wouldn’t be worsened, so I thought that that 15

was reasonable and the project as it stands and is proposed, won’t have

any effect so we are comfortable in offering that condition.


20

MR PARSONSON: Sorry to bounce you around the topics, Dr Fisher. Just

going back to that line of questioning about the area within the Civil

property and to the east.

Is there any drawings that show the extent of a two year flood? 25

DR FISHER: No, there isn’t.

MR PARSONSON: Okay. If that land to the north and east of the Carran

Road Flood Bridge was continued to be owned and operated by the 30

Civil interests as a farm, would you still consider that the level of

access that would be available during flood conditions to be an

appropriately minor effect?

DR FISHER: It depends on the areas of the farm that are outside the flood 35

plain and the ability for the stock to get to those areas. Sorry, I don’t

have a detailed knowledge of the operation or of the fence location so I

couldn’t comment in detail on that. It depends very much on those

areas that could be retreated to in the positioning of fences and where

the stock are at the time of the flood. 40

MR PARSONSON: Yes, because of the Carran situation, of course, stock can

move, notwithstanding the need to go through gates, they can move in

either direction east or west because there is no alignment blocking

their passage from one direction or another. But if this was 45

Page 959


constructed, then the alignment would block stock movement to the

west and so they would be restricted to moving east.

At the moment the alignment passes through the Civil property, doesn’t

it? 5

DR FISHER: Yes, the alignment does.

MR PARSONSON: So the alignment will create a barrier to the movement of

stock other than through the floodway? 10

DR FISHER: I am just trying to get my bearings as to the areas of the Civil

properties that are outside the flood plain. Dr Civil would be better

equipped to tell me where those boundaries are, but I understand that

these areas here - - - 15

[2.14 pm]

MS BROSNAHAN: Sir, Mr Donnelly can probably use his cursor to show

you where they are, Dr Fisher, if that would assist? 20

DR FISHER: Yes, that would be helpful, thank you. Mr Donnelly, can you

trace the boundary.

MR PARSONSON: How much of the land that is outside the floodplain 25

shown below the alignment, is the Civil property, that triangle there?

DR FISHER: The triangle below the cursor, I understand to be the Civil

property, yes, that triangle there, and further to the west there is an area

between the boundary and the floodplain, yes, that block there? 30

MR PARSONSON: Yes, and there is a small water course passing down that

valley, is there?

DR FISHER: Yes, there is. It is a minor watercourse. So there are those 35

blocks that are outside the floodplain, that are given the restrictions in

fencing and gates stock can retreat to, and don’t have to rely on

(INDISTINCT 1.39).

MR PARSONSON: And I am not wanting to labour the point too much, but if 40

there was stock on the, well, as we look at the picture on the top side of

that watercourse, when the floodwaters start rising where do they go?

DR FISHER: If they are where, sorry?

45

Page 960


MR PARSONSON: If they are in the top side of the watercourse, between the

watercourse and the alignment?

DR FISHER: So the floodwater levels in this area are up to about a metre deep

and at the edges, of course the water level goes to zero. The water 5

level in this area – the water in this area is quite slow moving in

ponding, so stock could move to the edge of the floodplain and stand in

the shallows if they were trapped on the north side of the floodplain

adjacent to the motorway alignment there.

10

MR PARSONSON: Thanks.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. With respect to the last question that you

just had, in the area you have just described, was that an area – what

colour is that on the annexure A to your evidence? 15

DR FISHER: So that area is downstream of the Carran Road Flood Bridge so

that is an area where we would see a decrease in flood levels during the

project, so it would be green.

20

MS BROSNAHAN: That area you were just speaking of is in that green area?


MS BROSNAHAN: Just a couple of questions. With respect to TP 108, how 25

would TP 108 note the difference between Remuera and

Point Chevalier as Commissioner Chandler was asking. Would it take

into consideration the differences?

DR FISHER: Yes, it would, so TP 108 take all the regional rain gauges and 30

creates contours of rainfall intensity using all that spatial information,

so it would, if there was a real difference between rainfall intensity in

Remuera and Point Chevalier, it would do its best to represent that, and

we see that here where there is a greater rainfall intensity in Warkworth

in satellite and TP 108 shows that there is a gradient of increased 35

rainfall up the catchment.

MS BROSNAHAN: And is TP 108 standard practice for this kind of

consideration?

40

DR FISHER: TP 108 is the Auckland Regional Council and has been adopted

by Auckland Council as the standard hydrological approach for doing

this sort of assessment, yes.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. And we have discussed a lot about flooding 45

in this area as a result of the project. As a result of the project, are

Page 961


there any habitable buildings that would be flooded that would not be

flooded without the project?

[3.19 pm]

5

DR FISHER: There are four habitable dwellings that are currently flooded

under this flood hazard model, and flooded to a greater extent to the

project. Beyond that there are no properties that were outside the flood

plain and become inside the flood plain due to the project.

10

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. Sir, I don’t know if this is useful, the

questions you were asking of Dr Fisher about the age of the gauge. We

went back through the technical reports, I don’t know if you’d like me

to let you know - - -

15

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, please.

MS BROSNAHAN: - - - that 1982 is when the Mahurangi College flow gauge

– is that correct, have I looked up the right one?

20

DR FISHER: The flow gauge, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Well he doesn’t know, because he told us he doesn’t know.

But are you - - -

25

MS BROSNAHAN: I can give you the year I was just making sure - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Are you giving us an assurance that this is when it went in,

are you?

30

MS BROSNAHAN: I’m just making sure I was looking at the right gauge –

the Mahurangi College flood gauge – flow gauge, sorry. Flow gauge at

Mahurangi College, yes.

DR FISHER: Yes. 35

MS BROSNAHAN: That was 1982. There you go, there’s the website, sir.

Mr Donnelly’s very efficient – there you go 11th of June 1982 to be

precise.

40

CHAIRPERSON: And that’s the flow gauge?

MS BROSNAHAN: At 1.15 pm, it’s very specific. But that’s the flow gauge

in the Mahurangi College.

45

Page 962


CHAIRPERSON: Well if that’s the evidence, you’re not in a position to

dispute it, Dr Fisher.

DR FISHER: I accept that.

5

CHAIRPERSON: That’s the way to do it, Ms Brosnahan.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you, Dr Fisher. You’ve already answered a

number of questions from the Board, but could you answer any

questions by my friends or from the Board. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.


15

CHAIRPERSON: Before I call on Dr Civil, Ms Vella, is this an area where

you’re going to enter the list at the end or not or aren’t you sure?

MS VELLA: Thank you, yes sir.

20

CHAIRPERSON: You want to. Well Dr Civil, we might as well get started

on you, and you’ve got about seven or eight minutes I guess before we

take the break at 3.30. Just so Ms Vella’s got an indication, you’re

going to be, what, about 45 minutes or a bit less than that?

25

DR CIVIL: It won’t be that long.

CHAIRPERSON: It won’t be that long. The Board’s given Dr Fisher quite a

grilling anyway, which has probably helped - - -

30

DR CIVIL: And you’ve managed to ask him some of the questions that I

intended to do so, but I may be posing the same questions in a slightly

different way.

CHAIRPERSON: And if you feel – I would appreciate you’ll have to discuss 35

it with trustees and things, but if you can make available, and let the

secretary know when you can do it, the historic records from your own

rain gauge, once we know they’re available we can then probably craft

a suitable direction for it to – so these levels to be reassessed.

40

DR CIVIL: I’ll talk to the farm manager and see what I can find for you, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Give him a kick along and see what happens. Okay, over

to you.

45

Page 963


<CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR CIVIL [3.21 pm]

DR CIVIL: You know I’m Denise Civil and I met you at the facilitative

meeting on the 21st of March. I’ve got questions around three areas.

They’re not just about the flooding on our farm, they’re about the 5

modelling process and about the historical context of what happens

here.

I first want to know, when did you first become associated with this

project? 10

DR FISHER: I first became associated with the project probably in 2011 or

thereabouts. I was involved as reviewer for NZTA of the scheme

assessments work and then subsequent to that I’ve been involved with

the further north alliance in the current consent and designation stage. 15

DR CIVIL: At that stage the alignment I assume had been – that the route of

the road had been determined, is that correct?

DR FISHER: There was scheme assessment alignment at that stage. That 20

alignment is broadly, as it is now, but there’s been tweaking to that

alignment in the later stage.

DR CIVIL: No, I’m talking about the total route, not the alignment within the

route, but this route what had been determined at the time that you 25

came on board, correct?

DR FISHER: Yes.

DR CIVIL: And could you tell me, please, how developed was the flood 30

assessment at that stage?

DR FISHER: It was reasonably limited, and why I was it was limited is that

the flood hazard models that we’ve used in our assessment that have

met the flood plains weren’t developed at the time of the scheme 35

assessment. They’ve become available to us for the current phase of

the project.

DR CIVIL: So at what stage did you become aware of the potential for

funding in the valley paddocks on our property? 40

[3.24 pm]

DR FISHER: We became aware of that, I became aware of that personally in

February of March of last year when I looked at the results of the 45

Auckland Council Rapid Flood Hazard Assessment Models. I was able

Page 964


to talk to the project team including Patrick Kelly who was able to

confirm that there was in consulting with the community in that valley

that there was collaborating evidence of the flow path so that gave me

confidence that it did exist. We responded by changing our design.

5

DR CIVIL: So for two years NZTA have known about the flooding but they

have not passed it on to you?

DR FISHER: My first involvement in the project was as a reviewer. I

reviewed the information that was in front of me. The flooding extent 10

in that area was not part of those reports that I recall.

DR CIVIL: Just confirming then we have heard at this hearing to date that a

lot of the initial investigation were desktop studies and this looks like it

was the case with the storm water assessments as well. 15

DR FISHER: I cannot recall the degree of assessment or onsite validation that

was done for those scheme assessment reports.

DR CIVIL: Would an understanding of the historic circumstances have any 20

bearing on the hydrological modelling that you undertook?

DR FISHER: These observations of this overland flow path that goes through

the Civil properties are, the information particularly from the Civil

farm manager on our site walkover had described the extent of flooding 25

in the valley are and the depth of flooding for the anniversary weekend

2011 event and the frequency of flooding at how often it occurs to a

lower level.

That information was very useful to us in that early phase of 30

developing this indicative design so that was in March, April of last

year.

DR CIVIL: I am talking about what might have been around say at the turn of

last century what the hydrological situation was in the vicinity, did you 35

look into sort?

CHAIRPERSON: Which century are we talking about?

DR CIVIL: Early 1900s. 40

CHAIRPERSON: 1999 or 1899?

DR CIVIL: 1899, 1900, 1925 did you have any knowledge of what the land

looked like at that stage and would that be important to what you might 45

look at. I am thinking specifically about the fact that there was a

Page 965


shallow lake from the Carran Road, Woodcocks Road area back to the

Papeka (ph 3.24) south glasshouses. Would that have any bearing on

what you might be considering in the plains?

CHAIRPERSON: Or in short have you looked at the alluvial history over 100 5

years otherwise?

DR CIVIL: Precisely.

DR FISHER: We had information from our geotech engineers that indicated 10

that the valley floor in the vicinity of the Carran Road Flood Relief

bridge and north of there was a swampy alluvium so we knew that it

had that sort of history. Walking through there you can tell by the

nature of the land that it would have been a low level wetland in the

past that has been drained by farm ditches to create pastoral lands. 15

That is apparent from the geotech and from our site walkover.

DR CIVIL: I would like to talk about the hydrological modelling that was

undertaken and just so that I understand the process. When did you

actually do this modelling, how long ago was it done in the context of 20

investigation?

DR FISHER: So we did the hydrologic modelling in April of 2013. The

model was recent, at that time it had been recently completed by

Auckland Council and they provided us with their assessment of what 25

the existing flooding was, and so, that model we were keen to use, a

model that was developed by Auckland Council, to add on the project

components and assess the effects of the project, so that was done in

April of 2013.

30

[3.29 pm]

DR CIVIL: Okay. Mr Chandler has asked you about the rainfall issue, in my

evidence I mentioned that it’s about 1600 millimetres a year, can you

recall whether that is more or less than the rainfall that you considered 35

in your assessment?

DR FISHER: The rainfall depths that we used in our assessment are

documented in the operation order assessment report, they’re in table 8.

So, for example, in the – for the Mahurangi catchment, the 10 year 40

annual occurrence interval, the 24 hour rainfall is 247 millimetres - - -

DR CIVIL: That’s not going to help me make any comparison, I was talking

annual rainfalls.

45

DR FISHER: Okay.

Page 966


DR CIVIL: Do you know what the annual rainfall of the gauge that you were

taking your levels from, I’m trying to get some sort of comparison of

what that was like compared to the catchment that we have.

5

DR FISHER: Well we don’t use the annual rainfall in the analysis, we rely on

the storm – on a storm intensity - - -

DR CIVIL: Storm event. 10

DR FISHER: - - - to work out the flood events.

DR CIVIL: Thank you.

15

CHAIRPERSON: Well we might take a break there, Dr Civil, because annual

rainfalls not necessarily is - - -

DR CIVIL: I appreciate that, sir.

20

CHAIRPERSON: - - - entirely relevant to flooding. It may be relevant to

overall accuracy and likely inferences. A thought crossed my mind, Dr

Civil, I’m not sure whether the Board has power to force you to make

these records available, I mean we can certainly force other people

force to do so and I haven’t turned my mind to that, but there is I 25

suppose a slight risk of a two edges sword, because it may well be that

the records which I suspect could be the case, do cause some rejigging

of the modelling which may result in a slightly greater increase of the

inundation, but on the other hand it could go the other way - - -

30

DR CIVIL: Indeed.

CHAIRPERSON: - - - which wouldn’t necessarily suit your purposes, but

would at least show that NZTA’s calculations are conservative.

35

But I think the Board would find it helpful, but if you decide you don’t

want to make them available we won’t send you to jail - well I don’t

think we will.

DR CIVIL: I’m not sure how helpful they will be, given that they are sort of a 40

growth measure, and I’m not sure - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Well that’s all right, but you’ve heard – I’d asked those

questions after your helpful answer, but if we're just worried about and

if you want to have a talk after he’s finished evidence we’ll have a talk 45

Page 967


about it to Dr Fisher with Ms Brosnahan and I’m sure there’ll be no

objection to that.

DR CIVIL: I have got no problem.

5

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Sang, I wonder whether you could at some stage over

the adjournment or soon afterwards, let me have a hardcopy of NZTA’s

latest set of conditions, which were the ones which come in on Friday –

other Board members may want it as well, but it’s much easier to look

at them rather than to be fishing backwards and forwards on my iPad, 10

all right?

Right, well we’ll take a 15 minute break, thank you.

ADJOURNED [3.32 pm] 15

RESUMED [3.51 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, yes, Dr Civil, please continue.

20

DR CIVIL: Thank you. Dr Fisher, I want to talk about the modelling for the

whole of the project that you undertook. Can you tell me if this

modelling was a heterogeneous or a homogeneous assessment?

DR FISHER: I am not sure what that question means, could you explain a 25

little bit more please?

DR CIVIL: Well as I understand it the use of the modelling system that comes

out of the American Soil Conservation Society process and they

describe on their website various types of assessments that are done, 30

the homogenous being where you take one soil classification and use

that for the process or you use multiples ones and assess it variously

which did you do in this case?

DR FISHER: We used two types of models. We used the Rapid Flood Hazard 35

Assessment model.

DR CIVIL: That was specifically for the Carran Road area right?

DR FISHER: Yes. 40

DR CIVIL: For the whole of the project?

DR FISHER: So for the whole of the project we used a hydrological model

that is called SWIM and it is US derived in its origin and so for each of 45

the sub-catchments that we created so whenever there was a small

Page 968


stream that intercepted the motorway that was bounded by bridges, the

high points on either side we created a sub-catchment.

Within that sub-catchment we described different run off coefficients

based primarily on the vegetation cover so when it was forested we 5

used one CN number, when it was pasture we used another so

everywhere in the catchment we assessed the runoff based on what the

soil type was and what the ground cover was in terms of vegetation.

DR CIVIL: My understanding is that you used soil type C so you say so in 10

your Operational Water Assessment Report paragraph 6.2.4, page 52.

CHAIRPERSON: Just pause there while he turns it around.

DR FISHER: Can you give me that reference please? 15

DR CIVIL: Page 52, paragraph 6.2.4.

DR FISHER: Yes.

20

DR CIVIL: The underlying group C soil type was mud, stone and sandstone

and you used the kerb numbers that are applied to that soil group C?

DR FISHER: That is correct.

25

DR CIVIL: There are four soil types that the American Conservation standard

set out, they are soils that have high infiltration rates like volcanic

granular lime.

DR FISHER: Yes. 30

DR CIVIL: Soils that are characteristic by moderate infiltration and

transmission rates when thoroughly wetted like alluvial soils.

DR FISHER: Yes. 35

DR CIVIL: The soils that you have used that have a slow infiltration in

transmission rate when thoroughly wetted, correct?

DR FISHER: That is correct. 40

DR CIVIL: Then there are a further group that is characterised by very slow

infiltration and transmission rates when thoroughly wet and these

consist of clay soils with high welling potential and soils with a

permanent high water table is that correct? 45

Page 969


DR FISHER: That is correct, yes.

DR CIVIL: In the Carran Road Relief bridge valley that is on our farm you

have already mentioned that these are swampy lands, I understand they

are Papatea (ph 4.25) peat swamps. 5

DR FISHER: Yes.

DR CIVIL: How would you describe the soil characteristic in that area?

10

DR FISHER: Depending on the groundwater level they would be soil class C

or D.

DR CIVIL: I would suggest they are more likely to be D given that the

swamp line areas? 15

DR FISHER: They would, they could possibly be D yes.

DR CIVIL: Why were they not taken into account in the whole of the

assessment if you are only using soil type C? 20

[3.56 pm]

DR FISHER: It is predominantly the geology of the catchment is, the East

Coast bays is the Pakiri formation, which leads to a group C soil, 25

they’re - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Predominantly where?

DR FISHER: Everywhere in the catchment, except - - - 30

CHAIRPERSON: Well that’s I suspect Dr Civil’s point. What she’s saying, is

that your modelling has used the wrong soil type for the type of soil

which the Carran Road Flood Plain actually is.

35

DR CIVIL: Correct, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Now would you comment on that.

DR FISHER: So that the model that Dr Civil is asking me about, is a 40

hydrological model, so it was used to assess the change in land use due

to the motorway. So it assessed the change from pasture or bush to

impervious asphalt surfaces, and also assessed the change from pasture

or bush to rock cuts or other such slopes.

45

Page 970


So what we're doing with that model is trying to look at how flows at

the bottom of the catchment were changing as the result of land use

changes.

And in doing so, we use the soil class C because that’s generally the 5

predominant soil class in the catchment. If there was a local area such

as in the vicinity of the Carran Road Flood Relief Bridge, that was

downstream of the project and was unchanged by the project, it

wouldn’t have a material effect on the hydrological analysis that we’ve

undertaken. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Why not? This class D soil would drain much more slowly

than class C, would it not? And if the water tables higher which it

clearly would be here, that would affect it as well.

15

DR FISHER: So there’s a couple of reasons my – it’s my opinion that it

wouldn’t change the hydrological assessment. One is that that, that the

soil class that describes the C number that’s based on a soil class that

describes that area in the Carran Road Flood Relief Bridge area, is

unchanged between the predevelopment and the process development, 20

the existing and with project. So what we were doing with this model is

making a comparison, so that doesn’t change between the two models,

so when we look at the difference it doesn’t make any difference.

DR CIVIL: But - - - 25

DR FISHER: And the other reason is that we look at the – our focus is on the

areas of the project that change and isn’t part of the project that change.

What we found with that model, is that when we put in the soil C 30

numbers and we ran a hydrological analysis we came up with a

hundred year flow that was quite a bit larger than the flow that you will

get from the flow gauge and I refer to that in section 6.4 of the

operational water assessment report.

35

The model that we're describing here, the hydrological model, produces

a hundred year flow of 577 cubic metres per second, and that’s much,

much larger than the flow that’s estimated by the flow gauge – the

actual recorded flow over the 30 years of record, which is, when

extrapolated gives you a hundred year flow of only 281. 40

CHAIRPERSON: So you, as an expert, you’re satisfied that your modelling is

appropriate for the types of issues we're discussing at the moment, in

respect of the Carran Road Flood Plain?

45


Page 971


CHAIRPERSON: Back to you.

DR CIVIL: Thank you. Does the modelling that you use for the whole of the

project, is that the same process you use with the Auckland Council 5

Rapid Flood Hazard modelling?

DR FISHER: The Rapid Flood Hazard model uses a similar approach, it also

uses the same rainfall data, but it has a different hydrological modelling

mechanism. The model – the rainfall that is placed on the model falls 10

directly onto the grid and runs across all the surfaces of the model.

Whereas a hydrological model, the hydrology is done per sub-

catchment and the water is put in at discreet locations to the model.

[4.01 pm] 15

DR CIVIL: The Auckland Council river flood hazard modelling is a work in

progress, isn’t it?

DR FISHER: The river flood hazard modelling is a stage of modelling that 20

the council go through, so the first stage in identifying hazards and

areas of priority is that rapid flood hazard model. If there are issues

that the council want to understand more they develop a more detailed

model, that’s correct.

25

DR CIVIL: But at the moment they haven’t got very far with developing the

model for the area that we’re talking about.

DR FISHER: So it’s my understanding the Auckland Council are currently

developing this stage 2 refined model. 30

DR CIVIL: Right, have you got any idea how long it’s going to take place

before they get to the area where the refined model will be able to be

used?

35

DR FISHER: I don’t have a timetable from them, but when we last discussed

it, it was progressing and they were undertaking a survey, and that was

the middle of last year.

DR CIVIL: Now, you say on page 54, that you acknowledged that more 40

detailed modelling and calibration of the model would more accurately

define the peak flood levels, and that you recommend that such a model

be prepared as part of the project’s detailed design, is that correct?

DR FISHER: Yes. 45

Page 972


DR CIVIL: So what you’ve done so far is not specifically identifying the

flood level but more involved in assessing the overland flood flow

paths for accessing at-risk dwellings, would that be a fair assessment of

the intent of the Auckland City Council investigations?

5

DR FISHER: So the intent of the rapid flow as a model is that it maps areas of

flood hazard and it informs their planning processes.

DR CIVIL: All right. I just want to be clear. What area are we considering

when we’re talking about the modelling, are we talking about just the 10

area within the designation or the designation in the immediately

adjacent land or the whole of the Mahurangi catchment area?

DR FISHER: Are you asking about the hydrological model or the rapid flood

hazard? 15

DR CIVIL: The rapid flood model now?

DR FISHER: The rapid flood hazard model models all of the catchment.

20

DR CIVIL: Right. So when doing that modelling, particularly predicting the

future flood hazard, to what extent was the increased development of

what was taken into account?

DR FISHER: In doing the rapid flow hazard modelling, the future development 25

wasn’t considered.

If I just clarify, the development that was indicated in regional planning

documents is accounted for, and there wasn’t any pre-entry plan, so

there wasn’t any need to include for maximum, probable development 30

of future catchments.

DR CIVIL: But this road is going to bring development to Warkworth, that’s

one of its purposes, and with development comes increased stormwater

runoff because of more hard and permeable surfaces, and yet you didn’t 35

take that into account in doing your flood hazard assessment. Why

not?

DR FISHER: The project can only assess the land uses that are anticipated by

planning documents, and that’s what we did – we didn’t look beyond 40

that. I’ve got volunteer comment though that the land intensification

that is indicted by the unitary plan is all to the east, and hydrologically

downstream of the motorway, so I don’t anticipate any influence from

that on the needs of the motorway drainage.

45

Page 973


DR CIVIL: I would like to question that further. Surely if you’ve got more

water running into the Mahurangi River downstream it’s going to cause

backlog upstream.

DR FISHER: So that can happen, but in the same way that this project is 5

required to assess its effect, any downstream project would need to

demonstrate that it wasn’t having an effect on both upstream and

downstream of its development.

[4.06 pm] 10

DR CIVIL: I am not sure that is a viable assumption given that small

increments might have minor effect, but the accumulative effect could

be quite significant, could you comment on that please?

15

DR FISHER: The project as it is designed in the future will account for all the

known upstream and downstream development at that time. That has

been what we have done for the assessment we have accounted for all

the know developments at the time that we undertook the assessment.

20

DR CIVIL: In the meantime we have now got the proposed unitary Auckland

plan and so that was not taken into account in terms of your

assessments?

DR FISHER: No, it was not. 25

DR CIVIL: Thank you. You are aware of this document the guideline for

storm water runoff modelling in Auckland this was the TP108 that was

referred to earlier, correct?

30

DR FISHER: You are referring to TP108?

DR CIVIL: I am, yes.

DR FISHER: Yes. 35

DR CIVIL: I wonder if you would mind reading to the Board the section that

I have marked here please. This is under section 1.2 the limits of the

application of the guidelines, page three.

40

DR FISHER: Yes, so the bullet point that you want me to read is - - -

DR CIVIL: It is the part with the lines down beside it.

45

Page 974


DR FISHER: Yes, so on page three of the ARC guidelines, the storm water

runoff modelling, technical publication number 108. The model has

been prepared as a standard tool for converting design rainfall events

into a designed runoff event on the same exceedance frequency,

validation of the model against six gauge Auckland catchment gave a 5

standard error of 21 percent for all average recurrent intervals.

For average recurrence interval of two to 100 years the model can be

expected to be within plus or minus 25 percent at a confidence level of

90 percent. This level accuracy is good for a regionally calibrated 10

model for which errors of 25 to 70 percent are typical and there is a

reference to IEA 1987.

DR CIVIL: Now as a lay person when I see errors quoted at plus or minus 25

percent or average errors of 25 to 70 percent I would say that is not 15

very accurate, would you comment on that please?

DR FISHER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Just pause there I just want to check this is relevant. What 20

was this IP?

DR CIVIL: IP108 and I gather it was used.

CHAIRPERSON: Have you used this, has this been fed into the modelling 25

which you have used?

DR FISHER: Yes, it has.

CHAIRPERSON: It has yes okay, answer the question please? It was just up 30

to 25 to 70 percent might not be particularly accurate?

DR FISHER: Yes, sir. I have already mentioned that in our Operational Water

Assessment Report on page 54 in section 6.4 that we verified the

accuracy of the model and we demonstrate that the flood peaks 35

predicted by the model were much higher than those used developed

from the Mahurangi flow gauge, the SWIM model predicts a peak flow

of 577 cumec whereas the flow gauge only estimates 281 so on that

basis we are confident that the model we have used gives very

conservative, very high flows so used on the basis for sizing culverts 40

and bridge waterways and looking in the change in runoff quantity, it

was a good tool for that type of assessment.

DR CIVIL: I would just like to go back to the potential flooding north and

west to the project in our valley and of the Kaipara Flats Road. There 45

is a suggested condition that the project should not contribute any more

Page 975


than 100 mm increase in flood level for the 100 year flood. We have

heard the Board ask you questions about how long the flood relief

bridge would need to be to be no flooding and I gather that is about 260

metres. Why did you not recommend that the bridge be this long?

5

[4.11 pm]

DR FISHER: Why did I not recommend the bridge was that long? Because

we started - when we identified the overland flood path in that area, we

sought to mitigate the effects of the project on that, so we did that 10

firstly by moving the alignment of the road and then we started with a

28 metre wide long span of bridge and then we increased it to a 60

metre long span of bridge to reduce the upstream afflux of the bridge.

So with the 60 metre span of bridge, we have achieved an upstream

water level of change of less than 100 mils. 15

In my experience that is a very low level of afflux or increase in water

level upstream of a bridge of this size, so I was comfortable that it was

an appropriate solution given the problems. Also in coming to that

conclusion, I considered the effects of the project, the 100 mil increase 20

in water level depth only changes the flood extent very slightly, where

it effects four dwellings, three of those dwellings, the water level is

already predicted to be above floor levels and the changes to those

dwellings are incremental over and above that. In the other dwelling, it

was below the floor level and didn’t cause the flooding to exceed the 25

floor level.

So I guess I came to that conclusion based on a number of steps to try

and avoid and mitigate effects and then looked at the effects to see

whether they might be acceptable and in doing this, so balancing the 30

economics of the bridge structure, we had increased it to 60 metres, a

longer bridge costs more money so it is a balancing act really between

effects and costs.

DR CIVIL: So effectively, you made a judgement that costs should take 35

precedence over the flood hazard?

DR FISHER: No, not at all. In my experience the level of afflux of 100 mils

is very low for this sort of bridge.

40

DR CIVIL: What would happen if a bridge of 260 metres was put in there. At

the moment we have got a couple of embankments that would

otherwise go across there, what would happen to the excess soil should

a bridge be put there rather than the embankments, what happens to

that soil, I gather it is about 120,000 cubic metres? 45

Page 976


DR FISHER: The current projects for the indicative design has an excess of

cut material over fill, so if that fill wasn’t used in that location, it would

need to be disposed somewhere else. It is not part of the motorway

structure itself, it is part of a fill disposal area, so there wouldn’t be any

good use for that fill anywhere else. 5

DR CIVIL: And can I also ask you what effect does that embankment build-up

have on the groundwater water table of the water in the area of that

valley, if anything?

10

DR FISHER: I don’t believe it would have any effect on the groundwater in

the valley.

DR CIVIL: Are you aware of what the groundwater situation is in the valley?

15

DR FISHER: Yes, I understand the groundwater is shallow in the valley.

DR CIVIL: And you are aware that even despite the summer drought, we

have still got water about a metre below the surface in an area which

will be within the designation? 20

DR FISHER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Just pause for a moment, Dr Civil. Dr Fisher, you said

about three or four answers back when you were asked how you got to 25

the, or when it was you decided on the length of this bridge. You said

that there are a number of things you looked at but you frontend loaded

your answer by saying that, not you, but presumably you were involved

in changing the alignment of the motorway.

30

Do you remember saying that?

DR FISHER: Yes.

[4.16 pm] 35

CHAIRPERSON: And you said earlier today that you first got involved in

2011, correct?

DR FISHER: Correct. 40

CHAIRPERSON: So when you were first consulted, was there something

relating to flooding which was unsatisfactory about the alignment as it

then was?

45

Page 977


DR FISHER: Yes, if I can refer you to the figure in the Operational Water

Assessment Report, that was figure 18.

CHAIRPERSON: Can we flash that up please if we can?

5

DR FISHER: So this is a figure I have talked to before. The grey, sorry, the

yellow alignment, we will start with that, that is the alignment from the

scheme assessment, so that was developed without recognition of the

flooding issues in this valley and so it goes straight up the middle of the

floodplain. 10

When I became involved in the project actively within the further north

alliance, and we got the Auckland Council, Rapid Flood Hazard

modelling and that was collaborated with information for residents.

15

We recognised that the yellow alignment wasn’t suitable and wouldn’t

be built at all and would have too greater effect on the floodplain so we

moved to the grey alignment, so we moved as much of the alignment as

we could outside the floodplain to the north-west, but we were still left

with a crossing of the floodplain which is provided for by the Carran 20

Road Flood Relief Bridge, and also further down by the Woodcocks

Road Viaduct.

So when I said we have avoided the floodplain as much as we can, we

have done that by adjusting the alignment from yellow to the grey and 25

then we have mitigated with these two bridge structures.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, yes, continue please Dr Civil.

DR CIVIL: I have only got a few more questions for Dr Fisher. I would like 30

to investigate some outcome issues that I have with the proposed

highway. Let us assume it goes ahead as built as currently outlined, we

have an 11 metre embankment either side of a 60 metre flood relief

bridge. And we have had one of these 100 year flood events, but

instead of only having a 100 millimetres of additional flood water we 35

have two to three hundred millimetres above the level that would have

occurred had the bridge and motorway not been there.

How can you guarantee that this won’t happen?

40

DR FISHER: If I can just ask for a clarification of the question? Are you

asking how do we guarantee that 100 mils of water depth change will

occur rather than agrace (ph 3.12) one.

Page 978


DR CIVIL: How can you guarantee that we won’t have more than a 100

millimetres of flooding, additional to what would happen otherwise,

without the bridge being, the motorway being there?

DR FISHER: I think my answer would be similar to one I gave the Board. 5

We rely on the hydraulic model to tell us that. That hydraulic model

will be developed beyond the rapid flood hazard model that we have

used for this assessment.

The refined model is likely to lead to lower flood levels everywhere 10

and it will allow for the details of the project to be modelled, and will

compare for that refined model, we will compare the project with the

approach abutments, embankments going into the floodplain to the

existing situation with none of the project, and we will be able to

predict what the flood level change will be. 15

That is the tool that will be used to design the bridge to meet resource

consent conditions.

DR CIVIL: And finally, I am still not convinced that that is necessarily going 20

to be the case but if it did happen as I’ve described, we get a more

significant flood, how do we – or what do we as affected property

owners, what sort of recourse do we have against NZTA for causing

the flood situation to be exacerbated?

25

[4.21 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: That is a sort of a legal question which goes into tort and

statutory protection, which I doubt whether this witness is qualified to

answer, so maybe you can weave into your submissions if you think 30

it’s highly relevant, but I don’t think it’s really a question – you’re not

springing to answer the question are you Dr Fisher?

DR FISHER: No, I prefer not to, sir.

35

CHAIRPERSON: Your answer would be taken with a large grain of salt if you

were to I would have thought.

DR CIVIL: I thank the Board for asking all the questions they did earlier, they

certainly enlightened me. 40

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Are you sure – I realise – the Board realises this

is a very important, Dr Civil, but have you covered all the matters that

you want to cover?

45

DR CIVIL: I think I have, sir, yes, thank you.

Page 979


CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much indeed, and I’ll leave it to you to

liaise with Ms Brosnahan and Dr Fisher with your rain gauge records if

you would like to make those available.

5

Right, now I think we’ll let you have a go now, Ms Vella, and then may

be questions from the Board, are you happy with that?

<CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS VELLA [4.23 pm]

10

MS VELLA: Thank you, sir. Dr Fisher, Ms Vella, counsel assisting the Board.

So am I right in understanding that you were – you’ve said that you’re

involved in the indicative design and alignment of motorway?

15

DR FISHER: Yes, I was involved in the development of the indicative design

that has been assessed as part of the assessment report and my

evidence.

MS VELLA: And as part of your assessment report, you recommended – 20

made recommendations about where the design of the motorway

should include bridges or viaducts and some 40 culverts where the

alignment requires crossing a stream is that correct?

DR FISHER: The indicative design includes 9 bridges that are associated with 25

waterways, there’s more bridges than that, but 9 of them relate to

waterways and 40 culverts in the design as it stands at this stage.

MS VELLA: Okay. And your recommendations in that regard, essentially

were based on – well my understanding is that they were based on a 30

best practicable option approach so that you took into account a range

of factors in determining whether or not the stream crossing should

comprise a bridge or a viaduct or a culvert?

DR FISHER: That’s correct. 35

MS VELLA: And part of that consideration was that, I think in your report at

page 73 you say, that bridges have the least environmental impact, but

are the most costly and culverts have more environmental impacts but

are less costly. 40


MS VELLA: And at paragraph 39.7 of your evidence-in-chief, which is on

page – actually there’s no page number – page 10 – you say that you’ve 45

assessed the effects of the project on overland flow to be minor, as

Page 980


these effects will be mitigated by bridges, culverts and stream

diversions, is that correct?

DR FISHER: That is paragraph 39.7.

5

MS VELLA: 39.7 that’s right.

DR FISHER: Yes, that’s correct.

MS VELLA: Yes. Now are you aware that there is no condition requiring 10

NZTA to implement your recommendations as to whether a bridge or a

viaduct is appropriate or a culvert is appropriate for stream crossings?

DR FISHER: Yes I am.

15

MS VELLA: In that case, and there’s no requirement for NZTA to consider

and adopt the best practicable option for mitigating those effects, is

there?

DR FISHER: There is a condition around culvert design that sets on 20

objectives.

MS VELLA: But that doesn’t assist in determining whether or not should –

the stream crossing should be a bridge or a culvert?

25

DR FISHER: No, it doesn’t.

MS VELLA: So can you assist the Board to understand which condition

governs or provides guidance as to whether a stream crossing should be

a bridge or a culvert that enables you to draw the conclusion that the 30

effects of overland flow are minor?

DR FISHER: Well if – both a culvert and a bridge will be designed for

overland flow, so either of those solutions provide for overland flows,

so I don’t have any concern. 35

[4.26 pm]

MS VELLA: Well on what basis have you made the recommendation that

certain stream crossing should be bridges as opposed to culverts? 40

DR FISHER: In section 7.6 of the operation water assessment report, there’s

quite a lot of detail there, that’s on page 73. For each of the bridges

there are a list of consideration points. Some of those are hydrological,

some of them are about other factors, such as the need for road 45

Page 981


underpasses or avoiding effects on the CMA, there’s a whole range of

considerations that lead to the choice of a bridge over a culvert.

MS VELLA: So that’s at table 12 on page 74, is that what you’re referring to?

5


MS VELLA: So in the case of any one of these bridges then, is it your view

that essentially it doesn’t matter whether it’s a bridge or a culvert from

an environmental effects’ perspective? 10

DR FISHER: Well for some of the bridges, if of course would make a

difference, looking at the Okahu Viaduct for example, it crosses an

estuary so a bridge has a very different set of effects to an embankment.

But I think that is considered in terms of the designation. Looking at a 15

minor viaduct, such as the third one, the Hikawai Viaduct, it crosses a

minor creek. There’s an access track under it, but that sort of small

viaduct could be changed to a large culvert. And the effects of the

project hydrologically wouldn’t be any different and would be provided

for by existing consent conditions. 20

MS VELLA: So in the case of a viaduct such as the Okahu Viaduct, which

you say is preferable to have a bridge, and an embankment would result

in quite different effects, what in the conditions would provide the

Board with comfort that those such viaducts or bridges will be bridges 25

and viaducts as opposed to culverts?

DR FISHER: Well I think in that case a reclamation is required, and I don’t

think that has been sought as one of the conditions or designations but -

- - 30

MS VELLA: So specific consent would need to be applied for for that one.

Are there any others in this list at table 12, for example the Perry Road

viaduct, which you describe as a major river crossing.

35

DR FISHER: So the considerations for why the Perry Road viaduct should be

a bridge, in terms of the project assessment was that it was a major

river crossing, the height and length of the crossing and the

geotechnical conditions may come back and its unsuitable, and there’s

some structural considerations about the bridge type. So in that case it 40

was quite clear the project that the viaduct was the best and perhaps

only option, because of the height and length of the crossing and the

geotechnical conditions that make the embankment unsuitable. So the

solution there is determined by the engineering requirements.

45

Page 982


MS VELLA: So there’s no requirement for the Perry Road viaduct to be a

viaduct as opposed to an embankment, but you’re saying that it’s

essentially the only option because of other restraints?

DR FISHER: Limiting my comments to my scope of evidence, if you could 5

provide a culvert it would be large culvert that could convey the water

across the motorway alignment in that location. In fact there are three

arch culverts in the project which are significant in size and do provide

for three crossing on main tributaries of Mahurangi.

10

So there are three locations where we have decided that large concrete

arched culverts that have a concrete floor and sediment in situ within

the base of that culvert that that would be an appropriate solution.

[4.31 pm] 15

MS VELLA: And again those – I think in your rebuttal evidence in fact you

decline to recommend that culverts to be required by the conditions, but

you’ve referred before to condition 50 I think which governs culvert

design, are you saying then that it’s your evidence that condition 50 or 20

point us to other ones if they are appropriate, essentially provide

sufficient design parameters to enable you to draw the conclusion that,

in any instance where you recommended a bridge in table 12, other

than of course such as those – such as Okahu viaduct – you can be

confident that the effects on overland flow are minor as you said in 25

your evidence.

DR FISHER: In terms of the hydrology and the hydraulics of the waterway

crossing, in all cases the culverts theoretically can be made large

enough to take the flows. 30

In practice, when you’re looking at the main branches of the, say the

Mahurangi left branch under the Woodcocks Road underpass, where

there’s a hundred plus cumecs of water going through there – culverts

not going to be the right solution, it’s always going to be a bridge that 35

engineering requirements dictate that.

DR CIVIL: Sorry, is that Woodcocks Road did you say?

DR FISHER: Woodcocks Road, yes. And similarly for some of the other 40

main river crossings, when the flow becomes large, the practicalities of

culverting are poor and the bridge is the only solution. So the

engineering of the crossing will dictate what the best type of solution

is.

45

Page 983


DR CIVIL: So essentially you’re saying that whether or not a culvert is

practicable, will govern whether or not it’s culvert or a bridge?

DR FISHER: Yes. And to elaborate on that, standard precast culverts will get

up to sort of two to three metre diameter, which you need – anything 5

bigger than that you need to go to a specialist arch type structure that

we propose. But that has limits on it size and larger than the sizes that

we’ve indicated, the bridge – a bridge is the only engineering solution.

DR CIVIL: And so, am I right in assuming that – I mean it seems to me that 10

there’s a link and I’m asking for your guidance on that, between what

you’re talking about now and the flooding condition, so in other words,

there’s no requirement to maintain, you know, flows of existing

streams for example, but presumably if you can’t construct a culvert

that will sufficiently maintain that flow then the effect of that is there’s 15

flooding somewhere along the way?

DR FISHER: That’s correct, and that’s a useful way to think about it.

Culverts normally work by heading up or increasing the water level

upstream of the culvert by a number of metres. And so if she can’t 20

provide enough culvert capacity, the water upstream of them heads up

more and the extent of the water upstream of the culvert goes further, it

goes beyond the designation.

So we have a condition here that limits and that’s condition 68A, which 25

requires the consent holder to demonstrate that any headwater ponding

upstream with any project culvert in the 100 year ARIs contained

within either the land within the project area at the time of construction

and/or an existing flood plain.

30

So you can’t force a culvert solution into a situation where you got too

much flow going through that stream because it will rely on – it will

require a much higher headwater to push the water through that will

extend too far upstream.

35

[4.36 pm]

So this condition will help control the top of solution that the design is

in the future.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Fisher, one of the culverts which is being proposed.

There is one of the vicinity proposed Perry Road eco viaduct whereas I

understand it the upper right branch of the Mahurangi River which the

Board has seen which is pretty narrow at that point, there is going to be

run in to the culvert of about some 200 metres length, do you know 45

what I am talking about?

Page 984


DR FISHER: I believe we do, sir, should we, I might just check that we are

talking about the same view.

CHAIRPERSON: Just in the overview which you had of this project and you 5

are the expert in culvert design and freshwater matters generally why is

it necessary to stick this hapless river into a culvert at all at that point,

do you know? It is up on the screen now if that helps too.

DR FISHER: I understood that you were talking about the culvert that is on 10

storm water drawing 109.

CHAIRPERSON: I think so, yes. It says here stream diversion that is it.

DR FISHER: Is that the one you are referring to? 15

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR FISHER: That has a stream diversion that then discharges into the existing

stream under the kauri eco viaduct. 20

CHAIRPERSON: I would assume so.

DR FISHER: That location the stream version is required to accommodate

the, that is an open channel. 25

CHAIRPERSON: Is an open channel?

DR FISHER: Yes.

30

CHAIRPERSON: All right, well that is helpful I thought it was a culvert but

why is it necessary to put this steam into an open channel do you think?

If you do not know tell me, but it is there and I just thought you might

have turned your mind to it?

35

DR FISHER: Yes, we have thought a lot about this particular site. Earlier in

the design there was a culvert in this location.

CHAIRPERSON: There was a culvert originally.

40

DR FISHER: There was a culvert but the project team moved to a bridge

solution, the kauri eco viaduct to try and reduce the footprint of the

project through the kauri area and it also had the benefits of preserving

the stream length under the bridge, but to fit the, because of the

geometry in this situation we need to create a stream diversion to be 45

able to locate that southern abutment.

Page 985


The location of that southern abutment is over the stream which has

meant that we have to push the stream out of the footprint and that has

necessitated that stream diversion. A stream diversion is preferable to a

culvert because it means that the habitat is there and fully functional. 5

CHAIRPERSON: Trying to understand that effectively the abutments of the

viaduct were going to go into the stream itself with a result the stream

needs to be diverted is that it or is not as simple as that?

10

DR FISHER: Yes, it is your Honour, so the project determined that a bridge

was the best solution for the site because of the stream and the kauri in

this area, but to get a bridge in there you need to have an abutment for

the bridge to land on and the location of that abutment sits over a

portion of the stream so a stream diversion is necessary. 15

As part of the design and the assessment we identified a number of

stream diversion typologies and so this would be a stream division type

one which is a low laying stream and it will have habitat features in it

and it will have riparian planting alongside and the objective is to 20

return that stream to its pre-motorway state or better.

[4.41 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: Okay now, Ms Vella has referred you to proposed condition 25

number 50 which is culvert design and do we have any conditions

which relate to – what’s this thing called – open channels.

MS VELLA: Stream diversion.

30

CHAIRPERSON: What, sorry?

MS VELLA: Stream diversion.

DR FISHER: There are a set of conditions that refer to - - - 35

CHAIRPERSON: Which ones are they?

DR FISHER: Stream diversions, they are what works in a watercourse, they

start with condition 40 - - - 40

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry?

DR FISHER: - - - They start with condition 48.

45

CHAIRPERSON: 48?

Page 986


DR FISHER: Yes, and go through to 60.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well that bundles up just about everything. What I am

interested in is if you are going to have an open channel like this, what 5

sort of conditions are there?

MR PARSONSON: Dr Fisher, do they represent any specimen or standard

cross sections for design?

10

DR FISHER: Yes, they do.

MS VELLA: Sir, I could probably help. Condition 52 is the condition I

understand to be the one relating to stream diversion and that relates to

appendix B. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Appendix B?

MS VELLA: It refers you to appendix B, perhaps Dr Fisher can explain.

20

DR FISHER: So condition 52 reads, “The consent holder shall design all

stream diversions in general accordance with the requirements in

appendix B for flow channel stability and stream habitat and riparian

planting.”

25

And if you refer to appendix B, there are three stream diversion types,

type 1, type 2, and type 3 which is just an open channel and there are, if

you are able to scroll on, there are these tables that have the

requirements and so taking for example, the lowland stream which is - -

- 30

CHAIRPERSON: Which one are we going to have up by this eco viaduct?

DR FISHER: So that would be a lowland stream.

35

CHAIRPERSON: A lowland stream?

DR FISHER: A lowland stream type diversion, so the requirements for flow

is flood conveyance of a 100 year ARI rainfall, a low flow channel, a

main flow channel, a flood berm for larger events, maintain velocity to 40

mitigate ponding and stagnant water, and then there is channel stability,

so that is about erosion, that it shouldn’t erode for a two year annual

recurrence into flow, and then there are requirements around instream

habitat around low continuous gradients etcetera, etcetera, and then

there are requirements for planting and those requirements for planting 45

refer to – have been developed by the project, terrestrial ecologists.

Page 987


CHAIRPERSON: Have a look at appendix B type 1. Is that what we are

talking about, there is a nice photograph there, diagram?

DR FISHER: Yes, that is, your Honour. 5

CHAIRPERSON: And is this, in your expert opinion, what should go up by

this eco viaduct, is that right?

DR FISHER: Yes, it should. 10

CHAIRPERSON: I sort of thought that an open channel is just a half pike that

somebody dug into the ground but obviously this is a work of art. Is

somebody going to actually go and construct this nice contoured

channel with planting on the sides and large boulders and logs for flow 15

complexity and all that sort of stuff, and bull rushes. Is this going to be

created by human kind is it, is this normal practice, I am not being

totally sarcastic, I want to know whether this is in fact how it goes.

DR FISHER: Yes, your Honour, this is how it goes as you say. So our 20

objective is to return the stream to existing environmental standard or

better and we felt in this area, to do that, we needed to put in these

typologies that had sufficient information both in these figures and in

the table and reference them in the conditions of consent so that

somebody in the future would have to adhere to these standards. 25

CHAIRPERSON: This to me looks a much more sophisticated stream channel

than what is there at the moment. Would you agree, have you looked at

this?

30

DR FISHER: Yes, I have, I have been to the sites and it probably is better –

once the vegetation establishes, in my opinion it would be better

hydraulically and in my knowledge of design of eco hydraulic

structures, better than what is there now.

35

What you see in large parts of the project area is that there are some

erosion and degradation of stream banks because a lot of the riparian

planting has been damaged. This sort of stream diversion will look to

re-establish a lot of that and improve the health of the stream.

40

CHAIRPERSON: so are you satisfied that if we approve this designation in

this particular area, and if we impose condition 52, what are we going

to end up with is something which approximates appendix B type `1?

DR FISHER: Yes. 45

Page 988


CHAIRPERSON: Sure?

DR FISHER: Yes and there are conditions in this section that are about the

process of determining that that is achieved.

5

CHAIRPERSON: Okay. Ms Vella, I am sorry, I have diverted you, like what

happens to Mahurangi River but go on.

MS VELLA: You have slightly diverted me, sir, but the follow-up question to

that is how can we be certain from the conditions that the stream will 10

be diverted at that location, rather than culverted because I think your

earlier response was that you have determined that it is more

appropriate for a stream diversion rather than culverting.

DR FISHER: There is a condition about the objectives around culverting and 15

if I can find that, I think that is condition 49 which says, “Works in any

watercourse shall achieve the following and point B is, minimise

stream loss as far as practicable, so if there is a practical solution to put

in place a stream diversion rather than a culvert, that is what this

consent will require. 20

MS VELLA: So the preferable option is stream diversions wherever possible?

MR PARSONSON: Dr Fisher, can you just clarify, is there a circumstance

whereby a tenderer for this project may propose a culvert at that 25

location on the belief that they will still be complying with the consent

conditions?

DR FISHER: In my reading of that consent condition, if it is practicable to

have a different solution, an open channel, then that is what will be 30

required.

The other aspect of these conditions that come into play, are the

ecological conditions so any time you have a culvert, you are required

to provide offset for that loss of stream length, so that is an important 35

consideration for the choice of culverts, and those conditions have been

developed by ecologists so I can’t talk to them more than pointing them

out.

MR PARSONSON: Aside from purely monetary considerations around 40

potentially being cheaper to culvert and fill, in your professional view

is it an appropriate solution to culvert that 200 metre section of one of

the main branches of the Mahurangi River or should it be open

channel?

45

Page 989


DR FISHER: At that location, a culvert – we do consider a culvert option and

hydraulically it can be achieved but in this location it was a

combination of the benefits of the stream and to the kauri stands and I

think some alignment improvements, that led to the viaduct, eco

viaduct solution, so it is always a broad range of considerations. 5

MR PARSONSON: Sorry, I might have missed your response to Ms Vella,

but is this particular piece of open channel diversion locked in through

the consent conditions?

10

DR FISHER: No, I don’t believe it is, because our consent application is for

an indicative design and includes the stream diversion. There may be

other solutions here.

MR PARSONSON: Thank you. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Vella, how are we going?

MS VELLA: Not too badly, sir, are you wanting to finish at 5 o’clock on the

dot? 20

CHAIRPERSON: I don’t know, that is why I asked you how you were going.

How much more do you want to run. I don’t want to get Dr Fisher

back tomorrow - - -

25

MS VELLA: No, that’s right.

CHAIRPERSON: Because he is going to have to come back on another day

anyway, and it is going to disrupt other people tomorrow so we will go

on until you have finished, I think. 30

MS VELLA: I shouldn’t be too much longer.

CHAIRPERSON: That’s all right. Have you got lots of re-examination, Ms

Brosnahan, probably none. 35

MS BROSNAHAN: I have a little, not much, but certainly not a lot.

CHAIRPERSON: Continue please.

40

[4.51 pm]

MS VELLA: Thank you. So I think we were talking about culverts,

Dr Fisher, a little while ago, I’m just trying to find - - -

45

CHAIRPERSON: We were.

Page 990


MS VELLA: - - - where I’m at.

CHAIRPERSON: Condition 50.

5

MS VELLA: Condition 50 that’s right – sorry, we’re talking about condition

68A and you’d referred me to condition 68A, is a condition that would

somehow assist to govern the appropriate solution to any stream

crossing.

10

And if you just refer to page 77 of your water assessment report, in the

second paragraph you say, “Culverts are the BPO (best practicable

option) when the following conditions can be met …” now one of those

conditions (the second one) is flooding effects from predicted afflux,

rising water level on the upstream side of a bridge or culvert are 15

acceptable, is that reflected in condition 68A?

DR FISHER: Yes it is. So the assessment report says that the flooding effects

from predicted afflux need to be acceptable. This condition 68A

establishes the performance requirement as to what is acceptable and 20

that’s the hundred year ARI flooding extent, upstream of the culvert

has to be contained within the project area or the existing flood plain.

MS VELLA: Thank you. And back on page 77 in your list of conditions, that

should met culverts, there are three other conditions there, but they’re 25

not contained in this set of conditions are they?

I think they’re – to help you there, they’re reflected in condition 50

which is the design of culverts – governs of design of culverts – but

they don’t – they’re not reflected in a condition that essentially says, 30

“Culverts shall only be used when the following conditions are met”,

you’ve actually only reflected one of those three conditions in the

resource consent condition.

DR FISHER: Well if we talk through those, you’re referring to the four bullet 35

points in section 7.7 on page 76?

MS VELLA: That’s right.

DR FISHER: So the culverts have sufficient capacity for the design flows and 40

satisfies the sizing criteria in table 10, I guess the primary requirement

there is that, the culverts are designed for the hundred year ARI flood,

that is considered and required by condition 49A. Some of the other

parts of the - - -

45

MS VELLA: Sorry, 49A?

Page 991


DR FISHER: Yes, by 49A, which allow for the hundred year ARI flood event.

The other parts are - - -

5

MS VELLA: Sorry, could you just hold on for a second.

CHAIRPERSON: 49(a) under heading “Stream Works”.

MS VELLA: Yes. 10

MS ……….: 49 small A.

MS VELLA: Small A, sorry, right, okay. Go on.

15

DR FISHER: The other part of table 10 in the OR report is, there are aspects

around the height of the water in relation to the motorway edge. I don’t

consider that they are requirements that need to be a consent condition,

but they’re a design requirement for the performance of the road that

the Transport Agency have concern for. 20

Then moving – we’ve already talked about bullet point 2 which is flood

effects from predict afflux.

The third bullet point is environmental requirement such as fish 25

passage, erosion control and energy dissipation are met – well fish

passage is provided for extensively within the conditions. The project,

aquatic ecologists have been involved in to helping those, so I’ll leave

it for them to talk to those.

30

MS VELLA: Sorry, but which conditions says that a culvert will only be

required and that condition can be met?

DR FISHER: Can you repeat the question?

35

MS VELLA: Sorry, which condition – which of the resource consent

conditions says that culverts – that you can only have a culvert where

bullet point 3’s met?

DR FISHER: I just missed the last part of your question. 40

MS VELLA: Sorry, which of the resource consent conditions say that you can

only have a culvert where bullet point 3 is met?

45

Page 992


[4.56 pm]

DR FISHER: These bullet points are about the culverts are the best practical

option when environmental requirements such as fish passage can be

achieved and so there are consent conditions for fish passage. That is 5

condition 51 which requires culverts to be designed and provided for

fish passage, then the next part of that bullet point three is around

erosion control and energy dissipation.

There should be a requirement for erosion control and that is in 10

condition 50D that culvert design shall incorporate energy dissipation

and erosion control to minimise the recurrence of scale and bank

erosion in receiving environments.

CHAIRPERSON: Counsel we need to take a short break just to wrap up one 15

or two administrative things which I doubt will be more than three or

four minutes but can that give you an opportunity to decide how you

are going to wrap up the cross-examination?

MS VELLA: Sure. 20

CHAIRPERSON: And then it will be you in re-examination and with a bit of

luck we should be away from here about quarter past five, is that all

right with you Dr Fisher?

25

DR FISHER: Yes, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Right, we will take a short break, thank you.

ADJOURNED [4.58 pm] 30

RESUMED [5.04 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Vella?

35

MS VELLA: Thank you, sir. I’ve taken your cue and done a lot of crossing

out.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry?

40

MS VELLA: I said, I’ve taken your cue and done a lot of crossing out, so

hopefully we - - -

CHAIRPERSON: No, no, I’m not trying to curtail you, we just wanted to be

focused, because attention at the end of a day tends to flag, particularly 45

a multi-issue day like today. But off you go.

Page 993


MS VELLA: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Your job is to make sure no stone’s unturned.

5

MS VELLA: Dr Fisher, I just want to move on to flooding, and can you have

a look at condition 67A.

CHAIRPERSON: What is the number again?

10

MS VELLA: Sorry, 67A, it’s on page 21 of the resource consent conditions.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS VELLA: Now that condition requires the consent holder to ensure that the 15

project doesn’t result in any more than a negligible increase in

downstream peak flood levels and/or flood flow up to the 100 year

ARI. Did you write this condition, were you involved in writing this

condition?

20

DR FISHER: This condition was developed in conjunction with Auckland

Council. The wording was developed with them.

MS VELLA: And is my understanding correct, that this is the general

condition relating to flooding impacts, and then condition 68 is a 25

specific condition relating to a special area that’s been identified?

DR FISHER: Yes, that’s correct. Condition 67A addresses the concern that

the Auckland Council had that the flooding, particularly in Warkworth

might be worsened by the project. So they wanted a condition 30

upstream of Warkworth that meant that the project couldn’t worsen

flooding for flood flows up to the 100 year ARI event. So that looks at

the Mahurangi catchment broadly as it affects Warkworth. Whereas

condition 68 is specific to the areas around between Wiley Road and

Kaipara Flats Road and State Highway One. 35

MS VELLA: Thank you. Can you describe what you would consider to be a

negligible increase?

DR FISHER: Yes, I know that word is a difficult one. It probably relates to 40

the means of demonstrating that there is no effect, and that’s by a

hydraulic and hydrological model. When you do some comparisons

between model, there can be slight instabilities in the model which may

not be real and an experienced modeller or water engineer would

understand that, so the word “negligible” allows for some discretion in 45

Page 994


professional judgement about what is a real change and what is just

something that comes out as a result of the modelling.

CHAIRPERSON: Which doesn’t really give us any idea of what negligible

means at all, does it? 5

MR BROWN: Mr Fisher, are you familiar with the term “negligible versus

minor” in the RMA context?

DR FISHER: I believe I am. 10

MR BROWN: Would you compare the definition of negligible you just gave

to be a similar one to the RMA version of negligible?

DR FISHER: Yes, I consider it is. 15

MR BROWN: Okay, thanks. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: And you’re satisfied on the same basis of in the answers

you gave to my questions earlier about Carran Road flood plain, that 20

this condition 67A is enforceable and that modelling can result in

ensuring there’s only a negligible increase.

DR FISHER: Yes, I believe it’s the right and only tool to make this sort of

assessment. 25

CHAIRPERSON: All right. Yes.

[5.09 pm]

30

MS VELLA: So following on from Mr Parsonson’s question, what you’re

saying is that the condition requires no more than, or barely a

discernable increase in affect essentially in flooding. Sorry, I think

your earlier answer was no effect.

35

DR FISHER: What I said was negligible in the sense that the flood model’s

do create some instabilities, which aren’t real changes, they’re only the

manifestations of the modelling process, but a professional water

engineer or modeller would understand that that’s what those

differences are, and in reality that there is no effect. 40

MS VELLA: And do you think there’s any scope for disagreement between

the council hydrological expert and NZTA’s?

45

Page 995


DR FISHER: My experience with this on the Waterview project where there

is conditions that relate to changes in flood level to be demonstrated by

a hydrological model, that there hasn’t been – my experience with that

project is that there hasn’t been any differences that couldn’t be

resolved. 5

MS VELLA: You’d accept though that Auckland Council may have some

difficulty in enforcing a condition that requires no more than a

negligible increase in flood levels?

10

DR FISHER: I would suggest thought that in terms of enforcing a

performance criteria such as this you need some measure. I think the

modelling is the best way of doing it. Auckland Council believe it’s

the best way of doing it too, because this condition has been developed

with them. And between NZTA and Auckland Council we think that 15

we can make this condition work – it was developed with them.

MS VELLA: And can you think of a more definitive means of describing the

negligible increase, could it be described by way of reference to a

margin of error for example or a plus or minus ex-percent? 20

DR FISHER: Yes, that could be done.

MS VELLA: What would that be, do you think?

25

DR FISHER: I’d have to give some consideration, but you could pull out a

bounds on it in terms of a percentage.

MS VELLA: Just a couple of questions in relation to – sorry, there are a

couple of minor points I’ll just quickly bring to your attention. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Minor points, not negligible ones?

MS VELLA: Well I don’t know whether they’re negligible or not, sir. But

just quickly, your evidence-in-chief at paragraph 49.5 – sorry, 49, says 35

“you recommend the conditions requiring…”, 49.5 says “vegetated

roadside drains for water quality treatment for ancillary roads…” I

wasn’t able to find that condition. I could find all the others but not

that one.

40

DR FISHER: Yes.

MS VELLA: Do you happen to know off the top of your head where that is?

DR FISHER: Yes, I will refer you to it. So condition 61A refers to 45

requirements for removal of 75 percent of total suspended solids on an

Page 996


average annual basis by design in accordance with TPT and guidelines

or variations agreed with council.

The variation that’s agreed with the council is for example vegetative

roadside drains for local roads. I have been discussing with the team’s 5

planner, Ms Sinclair, about how to perhaps pull that requirement out

and express it somewhere separately and somewhere more clearly.

MS VELLA: Okay.

10

[5.14 pm]

DR FISHER: But the intention of it is that for minor auxiliary roads such as

Moirs Road for example, when there is a very low traffic volume there

isn’t the pollution generation that should require treatment to TPT, and 15

some solutions like vegetative roadside swales are very effective at

treatment, but aren’t well recognised by treatment manuals such as TP

10, so we wanted to create the opportunity for best practical options

such as vegetative roadside swales for those local roads because there

isn’t the pollutant demand and if you need to put in TP 10 complied 20

treatment devices, you end up taking up a lot of space and creating

more earthworks and more footprint which isn’t a good outcome.

So that is the background to the issue but we are working on expressing

that different requirement for auxiliary roads in a clearer and separate 25

way.

MS VELLA: Thank you. And at paragraph 4, sorry 44, of your evidence in

chief, you say that there are three culverts on the existing State

Highway 1 that require upgrading as a result of the project? 30

DR FISHER: Yes.

MS VELLA: And again, I wasn’t able to find a condition that required the

upgrade of those culverts. Should there be one? 35

DR FISHER: Yes, there should be one, I wonder if it is covered by the

performance requirements for culverts, that they convey the 100 year

ARI event.

40

MS VELLA: Well that is just for culverts on the new motorway though, isn’t

it, and this recommendation relates to upgrading existing culverts on

State Highway 1?

Page 997


DR FISHER: I am just finding that. So that is the requirement for – that is

condition 49 which, “Works in a watercourse shall achieve

(INDISTINCT 2.05) requirements allow for the 100 year ARI event.”

Perhaps that should be clearer that it is for culverts affected, not only 5

on the motorway but downstream on the motorway.

MS VELLA: Okay. Just a couple of questions following on from Dr Civil’s

questioning of you, in fact, I think this was a question from Mr

Chandler. He asked you wouldn’t it be prudent to put a cattle 10

underpass at the Carran Road Flood Bridge so that the Civil’s can move

cattle, and you referred to a drawing which contained some cattle

accessway that was raised above the low lying pasture and said that that

was provided for, but that is not provided for as a condition of the

consent, is it? 15

DR FISHER: I don’t think it is, no.

MS VELLA: And you referred to the fact that you were involved in changing

the alignment from, and I think there was another drawing with a 20

yellow alignment that was in the floodplain and you recommended

changing the alignment to move it slightly to the west, I think.

Can you just confirm that – because obviously that is just an indicative

alignment – is my understanding correct that essentially condition 68C 25

would govern the alignment in that location?

DR FISHER: Yes it would, if the design in this area changed so that more of

the overland flow path that goes up the valley was blocked or

obstructed, then that condition 68C would not be achieved, so that 30

condition controls the range of solutions that a designer will develop so

that the effects aren’t any more than we have assessed for this project.

MS VELLA: Okay, thank you. And lastly, Dr Civil asked a question about

what the course they had against NZTA if the hydrological models 35

eventually didn’t stack up and these conditions couldn’t be met. And I

guess where she was going, was that there is no condition that would

essentially enable those effects to be remedied, if for example, the

modelling was incorrect, and resulted in an increase of flood levels of

more than a 100 mils or flooding of habitable floor levels where that is 40

not currently the case.

There is no follow-up condition requiring NZTA to, for example, move

or raise a house or for compensation, or something along those lines

that would enable the effects to be remedied. 45

Page 998


[5.19 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: The question being, do you agree?

MS VELLA: Is there, there is no condition to that effect? 5

DR FISHER: No, there isn’t but the consent holder would be in breach of

their resource consent condition at that point.

MS VELLA: But the only means of enforcing that condition would be, as the 10

chairman said, would be to change the motorway for now – or what

could be done if it was found that those conditions were breached?

DR FISHER: The bridge in itself, isn’t the only part of the solution in that

area, over that flow channel upstream and downstream of the bridge, 15

the ground levels can be shaped to change the water levels, properties

could be purchased, all of these are things, and floor levels could be

raised- all of these are options to mitigate flooding in this area if the

project effects are different to what is designed.

20

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but let’s say that despite the modelling, it turns out

that even short of a 100 year flood, that the levels are 300 millimetres

rather than the agreed 100 millimetres, or that in another instance, we

have levels which are more than negligible, and the project is

completed by that time and everyone has disappeared and cars are 25

zipping up and down the motorway, how is this enforced.

As I understand, it can only be enforced by making the penal

provisions of the Resource Management Act. Am I right.

30

You have had some expertise in this area, so what happens if, despite

everybody’s best intentions and endeavours, certain minimum

standards incorporated in conditions are not met or prove to be

ill-founded?

35

DR FISHER: I haven’t had experience with enforcement of conditions that

aren’t complied with, I would have to refer that to an NZTA lawyer.

CHAIRPERSON: Deferred, sorry, to whom?

40

DR FISHER: To the NZTA lawyers.

CHAIRPERSON: Well your answer is that you don’t know?

DR FISHER: I don’t know. 45

Page 999


CHAIRPERSON: Right, okay. Any further questions.

MS VELLA: Thank you, sir. Just one last question, just on the Carran road

Flood Bridge, you have said that originally the design was that the

bridge would be 30 metres, that resulted in unacceptable effects and 5

that you then doubled it and came to a figure that you considered was

acceptable. Others have suggested making the bridge 260 metres long

in which case we would have some flooding effect but much, much

less.

10

Have you considered an option in between 60 metres and the 260

metres?

DR FISHER: No, we haven’t, with a length of 60 metres, I considered that

was the best practical option between the costs and the size of the 15

structure and the residual effects that were there.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you have some cost figures when you made this call?

DR FISHER: I don’t know, no, I didn’t - - - 20

CHAIRPERSON: Because you have mentioned cost twice and I just wondered

whether this was information which you considered?

DR FISHER: Only in the fact that a longer bridge is more cost and you could 25

see from the 28 metre span to the 60metre span, with upstream water

levels that changed from 250 mils to 100 mils, there becomes

diminishing returns – the bridge becomes longer and longer, so it was

my judgement that that was an appropriate solution.

30

CHAIRPERSON: So essentially a pragmatic assessment by you based on a –

and I am not patronising you here, based on the fact that, you know,

120 metres is shorter than 240 and therefore won’t cost as much.

[5.24 pm] 35

DR FISHER: It was a pragmatic assessment and it was also based on my

experience with other bridges and that anything less than a 100

millimetres is doing very well in terms of upstream effects.

40

CHAIRPERSON: I understand, Ms Vella.

MS VELLA: And your – you said earlier that your – that the margin of error

in the models was plus or minus 50 mill is that right?

45

Page 1000


DR FISHER: I couldn’t – you couldn’t discern differences that were within

the range of plus or minus 50 mls.

MS VELLA: 50 ml.

5

DR FISHER: Yes.

MS VELLA: So essentially we could have a change of 150 ml at the end of

the day?

10

DR FISHER: The margin of error in the model is – it is small because what

we're doing with a 100 mls, is we're comparing one model to another

model, and the only thing that’s different in the two models is the

bridge structures, so that there is error in both models but when you

difference them, you’re looking at a – you’re only looking at the 15

difference caused by the project, so it is accurate in terms of assessing

the difference.

The models, particularly the Rapid Flood Hazard model, is not accurate

in assessing what the magnitude, what the water levels actually are, and 20

as we refine the modelling you’ll get more certainty over what the

absolute – what the water levels are, and that’s necessary for the bridge

design, but it’s also necessary for making sure that there’s adequate

(INDISTINCT 1.43) to the road in all locations.

25

MS VELLA: Okay, thank you, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: There will be a couple of questions from the Board, but Mr

Brown, it’s come to our attention that you’re here and I apologise for

the discourtesy of not asking whether you had any questions of this 30

witness.

MR BROWN: I don’t have questions, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Because if there are any breaches of these conditions I 35

suspect it’s Auckland City which is going to have to enforce them.

MR BROWN: We will be responsible.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay, yes. And have you – you just came in here to monitor 40

progress?

MR BROWN: Yes, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Not to wait until conditions at Hill Street have subsided so 45

you can get home easy?

Page 1001


MR BROWN: The longer we go the easier the trip home, sir, another half an

hour would be good.

CHAIRPERSON: Right. Mr Parsonson. 5

MR PARSONSON: Just two brief things, Dr Fisher, firstly, does NZTA have

performance standards that require that flooding is avoided on State

Highways up to the hundred year event?

10

DR FISHER: Yes, it does.

MR PARSONSON: Would that apply to old State Highway 1 as long as it

was still under NZTA’s control if the motorway was opened?

15

DR FISHER: Yes it would, and Auckland Transport and formerly Rodney

District Council also have standards for the level of flooding relative to

the roads too. So changes to the culvert will need to meet either

standard.

20

MR PARSONSON: Thank you. Secondly, there’s a condition that requires

that during the construction of culverts or stream works that the

diversion be put in place for the 24 hour - 20 year event.

DR FISHER: Yes. 25

MR PARSONSON: In your experience is this generally practical to achieve?

DR FISHER: So that condition is being developed by Mr Ridley - - -

30

MR PARSONSON: Should I hold my – keep my powder dry till he’s here?

DR FISHER: Yes.

MR PARSONSON: Yes, okay, well thank you. 35

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Chandler, any questions?

MR CHANDLER: Just coming back to this 100 millimetres, Dr Fisher, if the

model is accurate, I think I saw on TP108, was it 70 percent this could 40

be – is it out by 70 percent, under TP108, was that the competence

limit?

DR FISHER: So that was, yes, a statement in the TP108 document around the

limitations of the model, and that’s applicable, if we were using the 45

model to determine a floodwater level. But what we're actually using

Page 1002


the model to do, is to look at the – an effect from the project from a

difference. So we're using the model with the project and comparing it

to existing and so that error if you like is in both models, and so when

you cancel it out, the difference is just the effect of the project.

5

MR CHANDLER: The 100 millimetres presumably applies in relation to the

Carran Street Floodway, presumably it applies that the bridge, the

alignment of the motorway and then it would taper out as you go

upstream.

10

[5.29 pm]

DR FISHER: That’s correct, so if you’re broadly thinking – if you have a 100

ml increase in water depth and if the river slope is sloping at 1 in 200 or

so, it tapers out well within 100 or 200 metres. 15

MR CHANDLER: About 100 metres?

DR FISHER: 200 metres for 25 (ph 00.28) percent.

20

MR CHANDLER: So from the Carran Street - - -

DR FISHER: So that’s if the water surface is horizontal, but in fact you get a

curve to the water surface and that’s why our modelling shows that the

effect of the project is further than that. 25

MR CHANDLER: Did you look at the back water curve at all?

DR FISHER: The back water curve is modelled by the models that we’ve

used, yes. 30

MR CHANDLER: And the effect of that would go upstream for a maximum

of 200 metres?

DR FISHER: By the amount shown in that figure, the figure 44. So that 35

figure 44 includes for the hydraulics of the 100 mls plus the back water

effect as that difference tapers out, and that’s based on the local slope

of the river and the hydraulics of the river upstream of the bridge.

So if you look at the figures on screen here now, and if you look at the 40

scale on the bottom left, that scale is – it shows one kilometre in total,

and each of those increments – there’s four increments of 250, so each

of those increments is 250 metres, so the extent of the yellow upstream

of the Carran Road flood relief bridge is of the order of some 300/400

metres. 45

Page 1003



CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Re-examination?

<RE-EXAMINATION BY MS BROSNAHAN [5.32 pm] 5

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you, sir. TP108, you’ve had a couple of questions

about that, and I understood you to take us to 6.4 of your assessment

report. The question you just had from Commissioner Chandler was

with respect to 75 percent or the 25 percent that may have been 10

mentioned in TP108. Can you explain the 577 you mentioned that

TP108 came out with, and I think it was 281 you suggested was the

flow gauge. So the uncertainty there, which way did it go?

DR FISHER: So the TP108 model that we use is normally conservative, if it’s 15

not calibrated, so if you just use the method, the rainfall, the curve

numbers that give the run-off, and so we haven’t calibrated it, and we

get a peak flow for the 100 year ARI event downstream of the Falls

Road of 577 cubic metres per second.

20

If we compare it to the flow that you get if you use the 30 years of flow

gauge information at the Mahurangi College gauge, that gives a 100

year ARI of 281, so that the flow that we’d be using for the design and

assessment is much larger, more than twice the estimate that you get

from the flood gauge. So we feel that that number is conservative. 25

And one of the reasons why that’s conservative, is I think the rainfall is

also conservative, and in the break I found the information on the

duration of the rainfall gauges, so if I could explain to the Board what

that is. 30

So what I’m referring to is one of the water assessment factor report

number 7, which is the background of all the rainfall data that was used

in this project. And so I explained how we used the TP108 method and

the Heard’s (ph 4.35) method, and we compared them to the rainfall 35

gauges at the satellite station and at Warkworth. Now the satellite

station, it’s recording period started in 1984, so it has 18 years of

record, but the Warkworth composite rainfall gauge was started in 1921

so it has over 91 years of record and so when we established what the,

when we tried to establish the appropriate rainfall that we wanted to use 40

on the project we chose the TP108 estimate and so the for 100 year

AORI 24 hour rainfall the value that we have used in the Mahurangi

catchment is 310. If you compare that to the other database which is at

division four that was less at 279. If you compare that to the maximum

of the two rainfall gauges that is only 237. 45

Page 1004


[5.34 pm]

The number that we have used from TP108 is 110 mm per 24 hours

compared to the maximum observed and statistically extrapolated to

the 100 year of 237 mm per hour. The rainfall that we are using is 5

quite a bit higher than has been observed locally.

MS BROSNAHAN: So you have mentioned rainfall flow for both models,

you have used the term conservative in a number of them, do you

consider that your modelling of potential flooding effects of the project 10

to be conservative?

DR FISHER: The models as they predict absolute water levels are likely to be

high in terms of the absolute water levels, but because we have used the

models for differencing the assessment of those differences is likely to 15

be similar to that which we will predict in the future using the refined

models for design.

MS BROSNAHAN: When you mention the refined model when it comes to

looking at the design of the bridge could that refined model lead to for 20

instance the Carran Road bridge being longer as we have been

discussing today?

DR FISHER: It may lead to it being longer, it may lead to it being shorter as

long as the effects are not any greater than we have assessed, I do not 25

think that matters. There may also be other parts of the solution, you

may change the bridge alignment or you may do some shaping of the

upstream and downstream channels which will increase the conveyance

over that flow path. There is other parts to the solution for this

floodway that can be developed at the detail design stage. 30

MS BROSNAHAN: In response to one of Ms Vella’s questions regarding

condition 68 and she you through a number of the bridges could the

Agency meet condition 68 without a flood relief bridge at Carran

Road? 35

DR FISHER: No, I do not believe they could. There would need to be a

bridge of some form of a similar order to what is included in the

indicative design otherwise that consent condition could not be met.

40

MR PARSONSON: Ms Brosnahan, could I just ask a brief question while you

are underway, Dr Fisher if the modelling using the more accurate

methodology subsequently or is possible that then will then show some

of these properties you have identified on table three, could it possibly

show that their floor levels are actually not within the 100 year flow 45

plan?

Page 1005


DR FISHER: Yes, it may.

MR PARSONSON: In which case would the condition that prevents the

project resulting in flooding of habital floor levels still protect those 5

properties or not, my point being that if they are not currently actually

within the 100 year flood plain but there is a condition that allows no

more than 100 mls increase which then might put them in the 100 year

flood plain, is there some mechanism that would prevent that from

happening? 10

DR FISHER: Yes, condition 68A which was developed with Auckland

Council because they shared a similar concern requires says that

flooding of habital floor levels when pre-developed modelling indicates

in the project there is no such flooding in the 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 15

year flood events so you would need to at the design stage of this

project you would need to establish for using the revised model that for

the pre-developed situation that there is flooding of those properties

before you allow for an increase of up to 100 mls of flooding.

20

MR PARSONSON: It is a re-assessment of all properties to set a new

understanding of what is in and out?

DR FISHER: Yes, with a new model and at the stage of the detail design, the

assessment of what building – what dwellings are flooded will be 25

reassessed.

MR PARSONSON: Thank you.

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. Now a number of questions have also come 30

up with respect to Carran Road being used as a cattle underpass, would

it – it doesn’t fall into the stormwater realm I understand that or

flooding, but if it was necessitated through the Public Works Act

process, could it be incorporated into the design, it may not be required

now through conditions, but if it were necessitated through the PWA, 35

do you consider that that design could incorporate a cattle underpass?

DR FISHER: Yes, it’s currently allowed for the indicative design and any

design in the future could also allow for a cattle underpass.

40

MS BROSNAHAN: Thank you. One other question with respect to unitary

plan development, Dr Civil was asking you about land use and what

you’d considered and so forth and in passing you mentioned the unitary

plan and your assessment wasn’t done at that time, but since then you

mentioned that, all of that development is downstream, so do you 45

Page 1006


consider that the project would have flooding effect on that

development if it were to occur?

DR FISHER: In terms of the unitary plan I may have commented on it in my

rebuttal evidence, but the project really seeks to not worsen any 5

downstream flooding which is done through the Carran Road Flood

Relief Bridge and the condition limiting – or for negligible flooding at

Warkworth at the Mahurangi College gauge. So I don’t think – I don’t

see how the project would impact on development within the unitary

plan area. 10

The area that is being referred to is the future urban zone, is that

correct, which is east of the alignment, so that can be accommodated,

but would need to factor – it will need to allow for the extensive

floodplain that currently exists in those areas. 15

So there’ll be challenges in developing that land, but the project won’t

predicate any development of that land.

MS BROSNAHAN: And then a closing question with respect to flooding 20

effects and enforceability and that discussion that you’ve had with

some of the Board members, the conditions you mentioned in response

to Commissioner Parsonson’s question about the modelling, the

hydrologic, the before/the after is all essentially about design of the

project. 25

If the design met those, you’ve discussed conservatism in the model,

but if there were flooding effects greater than the picture you put up

essentially, is there an issue with a causal effect or how does this play

out in other flooding situations, how would one prove that the project 30

caused the effect?

DR FISHER: Is a question, if there was post-construction effects that were

not - - -

35

MS BROSNAHAN: Correct, the modelling at the design stage - - -

DR FISHER: Yes.

MS BROSNAHAN: - - - meets the requirements, there’s agreement between 40

the Agency and Council, the projects then built 50 years’ time, there’s a

100 year event and it goes up 120 mls?

DR FISHER: Yes.

45

MS BROSNAHAN: Is there a - - -

Page 1007


DR FISHER: A difference between a 100 and 120 mill, it may not be

measurable. But if there was a concern that the effects were worse than

allowed for in the resource consent conditions that could certainly be

investigated by returning to the modelling or by assessment of what’s 5

different on the ground that was not anticipated at the time at the time

the design was done.

[5.44 pm]

10

So you can certainly do some assessments and it’s very common if

there’s flood failures to do some investigated work to understand what

the cause of those flood issues were and to work backwards and to

rectify the situation.

15

MS BROSNAHAN: One last question and you have just mentioned that it

may not be measurable. If instead of 100 mls it was 200 or 300 mls as

Dr Civil mentioned what is that on top of, what is the depth of the

flooding that we are talking about with the 300 ml is increasing at the

highest point. 20

DR FISHER: The maximum depth of the flooding upstream of the Carran

Road Relief bridge is two to three metres so there are 300 mls increase,

or 200 to 300 mls increases the flood depth as a percentage by 10

percent. We thought that that was too greater an effect so that is why 25

we looked to expand the bridge span to 60 metres and reduce it to 100.


CHAIRPERSON: No more questions, Well thank you Dr Fisher it has been a 30

long afternoon for you and I think you are coming back the week after

next?

DR FISHER: Yes, I understand sir.

35

<THE WITNESS WITHDREW [5.46 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: I am saying if you Dr Genge could just, I mean the

scheduling today has been good but I rather suspect there was a slight

underestimate of the time which was needed of questions from the 40

Board and other counsel to the expert witnesses and if that could be

factored on the day when Mr Hinchey and Dr Fisher back so we do not

run out of time.

45

Page 1008


Ms Brosnahan, my calculations the next two days are solely

representations from lay people most of whom for a variety of reasons

oppose the project and none of them seem to be giving evidence so

there will not be any cause for you to cross-examine although the

Board of course will want to ask some questions. Do you and Mr 5

Hinchey both intend to be here for that or are you going to leave it to

Mr Hinchey or what?

MS BROSNAHAN: Actually the other way round. Mr Hinchey will lead me

to it I believe. 10

CHAIRPERSON: He is leaving you to it?

MS BROSNAHAN: He is, he has other important things to do.

15

CHAIRPERSON: All right, no that is, okay, and Ms Vella in a similar vein

unless members of the Board have a different view, I doubt whether we

will need you for the next two days.

MS VELLA: I was planning on chasing you afterwards, sir, to ask you the 20

same question.

CHAIRPERSON: You were what?

MS VELLA: I was planning on chasing you afterward sir to ask the same 25

question.

CHAIRPERSON: I think you can be excused because your function unless we

suddenly have a leader problem and then we know where to find you if

we do is to ask questions. 30

MS VELLA: Can I just clarify I think there is legal submissions in evidence

on Friday morning, would you like me back for those? It is Mr Bartlett

and Mr Smith for the Pūhoi Motorway Access Retention Society?

35

CHAIRPERSON: Well you assess the Pūhoi Motorway Access Retention

Society is going to call evidence so I suspect on ramps and off ramps

may be part of that, you may cause to whether you might be helpful

there. If so it would only be for an hour or two would it not?

40

MS VELLA: Okay, thank you, sir.

Page 1009


CHAIRPERSON: Right any other matters any counsel want to raise with us

before we disappear, well thank you for a productive day and we shall

adjourn to 10 o’clock tomorrow.

MATTER ADJOURNED AT 5.48 PM UNTIL 5

WEDNESDAY, 30 APRIL 2014

Documents

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS BOARD OF INQUIRY · 2019. 4. 6. · We now resume in our new venue, 10 the hearing. Have we got a hearing schedule because I am not sure who we have got