What’s the Story?

Editor’s note: This periodic news feature addresses issues which have Marlburians abuzz.

In an instance of form mirroring function, an inquiry about a river’s meanderings took a bit of taming. Piecing together what the reader relayed:
Work on the Ōpaoa (Opawa) River through the Renwick Bridge has been done to get the river to run in a straight line. This includes channelling a straight groove from upstream down to Thomsons Ford, by Old Renwick Road, so as not to eat into the bank. After the red-level storm in July, the river flowed into a half-dozen S-shaped bends and several bends nearly perpendicular to the bank.

What’s the story? Do that observation and assessment jibe with the work plan
Here is a Council spokesperson’s response – you decide:
“Council’s Rivers team is working on several sites as part of recovery from recent weather events as well as continuing its regular river maintenance of the Wairau River stopbank scheme. Works have been undertaken to remediate riverbank scouring including planting along the riverbank.”

Has something around Marlborough piqued your interest, perplexed you or perturbed you? Email [email protected] with “WtS” in the subject line