Port users ask for port entrance to be fixed

May 11th, 2011

In a submission to Tasman District Council's draft annual plan, users of Port Motueka have asked that $1.07m be budgeted to dredge the channel, cut through the sandspit and rebuild the training wall on the channel's eastern side.

A report printed in the Nelson Mail said boaties, fishermen, and a Jackett Island family want the channel dredged and the failed $1.4 million geotextile groyne removed. The funding would be $1.07m be budgeted from general rates, and the Port Motueka Endowment Fund.

The Nelson Mail wrote that Port Motueka Users Ltd member Ted Coppins said the channel had deteriorated markedly since 2005, and that it was getting increasingly shallow and dangerous for unskilled and inexperienced boaties.

The channel's western sandspit had extended and shifted east. The channel now dog-legged eastwards and could only be safely used for an hour on either side of the top of the tide, he said. The training wall, which dates from the 1930s, focused outgoing tides from the Moutere Inlet into the channel. The geotextile groyne, made up of iron-sand filled textile "sausages", was built by the council in 1995.

The port users group included the Motueka Yacht and Cruising Club, the Motueka Peninsula Marina Society, the Motueka Power Boat Club, the Golden Bay Motueka Commercial Fishermen's Association and Talley's Group Management.

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