Talking about drains might not be your idea of a fun night but, for a group of interested Lumsden area residents, the discussion held last month (Aug) was pertinent and informative.

After a local resident approached him about the drain problem in the last floods, local councillor and long-term local, Matt Wilson spent a lot of time researching, or as he said “nerding out” on the drains.

And they were certainly an interesting study.

Lumsden has a problem when it rains. The stormwater drains are unable to cope with all the water and lots of flooding occurs.

This is potentially due to the way the storm water system integrates with all the natural run-off from roads, roofs and the Lumsden Creek and its tributaries

Matt Wilson, through his observations and research, created a presentation which could provide a possible solution to our problem. It’s a solution that is environmentally sound and a lot cheaper than putting in drains.

Water escapes a wastewater drain in Lumsden. Photo: Facebook/SDC

It is a Ki uta ki tai (mountains to the sea) approach with the idea of planting along the creek with plants that are designed to slow down the water or provide areas of controlled wetlands to cope with the extra water rather than flooding properties.

“There are several areas of public land alongside the creek which could be used to plant out and maintained quite easily” Wilson said.

When it floods the plants slow the water down which means that those landowners further down are not having to deal with large amount of water flooding their properties.

One area of the creek that has been planted out already by local eco group, Reforest Northern Southland, and hydrology experts, who were looking at the creek in the last lot of flooding, said that the best performing piece of the creek during the flooding was this area which has been extensively planted. This does suggest that this is the approach that we should be looking at.

Reforest Northern Southland was set up in 2019 with the aim of bringing native flora and fauna back to the area, and promoting community growth and ecological education

They grow plants locally that have been eco-sourced and, with the help of volunteers, have managed to replant a reasonably large section of the Lumsden creek.

Not only has it been beneficial when there’s a lot of water coming down but it has also been really beneficial for the endangered native species of fish, the gollum galaxiid.

In September 2023, when we had a large amount of flooding, Lumsden was affected at the bottom of Folia Street where stormwater drains bubbling water back onto the street with potentially contaminated water and local schools closed to safeguard the health of staff and students.

The real problem seems to be that nobody actually knows whether it’s creek or stormwater drain or mixture, and it appears that nobody is rushing to fix the issue.

$20,000 was put aside in 2015 to investigate the issue with close to $450,000 then put aside to fix it.

Up to the end of 2023, this money had not been spent.

In 2021, when council staff saw that there were problems, they sent workers to clear out the stormwater drains or open culverts around Lumsden.

Those sections then had lovely clear drains but it meant that the people below ended up with more water coming onto the property as the clear drains allowed the water to flow quicker and cause more problems further down.

Wilson also added “Recently SDC staff acknowledged the overdue solution, and immediately remedied some major issues through maintenance and repair works. Which have made a huge improvement, meanwhile council still have to decide how to best invest into Lumsden stormwater system in the long term plan."

The work was a short term fix but hasn’t completely sorted the long term issue and the residents are still concerned every time a large amount of rain falls and wonder what damage this will do this time.

Lumsden is one of the only towns of its size in Southland that is still growing according to the Beyond 2025 Regional Longterm plan which means that a more permanent solution needs to happen soon.

At the information evening, while no specific solution was presented, the information shared was aimed at keeping everyone informed and sparking important conversations.

While chatting further to Matt he stated “I support investing into adequate drain infrastructure, be it pipes, culverts, open drains etc, however the portions that are clearly natural creek have opportunity to be managed effectively with nature based solutions like riparian planting and wetland establishment, allowing the investment into the required infrastructure to go further, rather than continual temporary fixes.”

Perhaps the community needs to decide if they want the council to just sort the storm water drain or include the creek as part of the plan, or if the community needs to take ownership and look after the creek themselves.

Peter Sim and the Between the Domes Catchment Group are eager to support the Lumsden community and invite more people to join their efforts.

They see this as a great opportunity for locals to take leadership in creating a plan that will benefit their town.