Floating Lagoon

Kawatiri Coastal Trail - Carter's Beach Westport

The food protection scheme is divided into five main sections of stopbanks:

Lower Orowaiti, Upper Orowaiti, North End, Lower Buller and Upper Buller.

The Floating Lagoon stopbank is a smaller stopbank. It starts at Talley’s bund and meets North End stopbank.

Estimated construction dates Floating Lagoon: starting mid 2026

The Floating Lagoon stopbank will be just over a kilometre in length.

At its highest it will be about 3.5 metres, with a median height of 2.35 metres. At the base it will be 25-30 metres wide

Four months construction time

(construction dates are subject to consenting)

Floating Lagoon area

The Floating Lagoon area abuts the North End stopbank

Complete:

  • Final design and geotech investigations.

  • Removal of vegetation around the smaller existing stopbank.

  • Geotech investigations.

  • The peer review of the detailed site investigation (DSI) and a leachate investigation are complete. A plan is in place for mitigating the contamination from historic railway material.

  • Environmental investigations are complete.

    Current status:

  • A Resource Consent application for this stopbank was lodged with West Coast Regional Council (WCRC) and Buller District Council (BDC) on 13 March 2026. We have engaged on this with local iwi and nearby residents, including Buller District Council, which owns the land where the stopbank will be located.

  • You can read the latest Media Release on the Floating Lagoon stopbank here.

  • Once consent is granted, or once we have indications that it is close to being granted, the contract will be put out to tender. The stopbank will take around four months to build.

  • Estimated construction dates: Starting Mid 2026 (subject to consenting)

General background

  • More than two hundred properties in the near vicinity of the Floating Lagoon stopbank will be protected from the Buller River flooding, along with others further afield. This includes properties on Forbes, Derby, Salisbury, Gladstone, Romilly, Peel and Queen streets as well as some properties on Beach Drive.

  • There is some above and below ground contamination in the area. This will all be managed with a Site Management Plan. It can be encapsulated so doesn’t prevent the stopbank going ahead.

  • We have discovered some local skinks living in the area during the Environmental Assessment phase. We have been granted authority by Department of Conservation under the Wildlife Act to carefully trap and relocate the species in question.

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