27 August 2024:
Our Southland Regional and Civil businesses have helped solve a major problem for Invercargill Airport and surrounding areas. Flooding.
In mid-August the new $11M Stead Street pump station in Invercargill, built for Environment Southland, was officially opened by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson and regional mayors.
Chief Operating Officer NZ Construction, Justin McDowell (right, above), says the teams “worked brilliantly to construct a technically and environmentally advanced system.”
At its core are two archimedes screw pumps that turn at just 16 RPM, pumping 3.0m3 of water per second. The Finnish-built screws have no impellers, allowing the passage of fish like shortfin and longfin eels and galaxiids (whitebait). A by-pass passage allows them to swim upstream.
As a low-lying city, Invercargill relies on significant drainage, stop banks and pumps. In 1984 Invercargill Airport was seriously flooded and, in 2016, a storm surge from the estuary flooded Stead Street.
Civil division’s Project Manager, Luke Hazlett, says it’s been inspiring to work together to help protect humans and the natural world.
“It shows what can be achieved when we consider the needs of living creatures together, and it certainly adds something special to a project,” Luke says.
Among fish life, tuna larvae will be a key beneficiary. Living in streams, drains and other freshwater habitats, they are susceptible to injury or death as they leave for their spawning grounds in Pacific deep-sea trenches. Newly hatched tuna larvae make their way back to New Zealand river mouths on ocean currents before moving inland on flood tides as glass eels.
Did you know? Long fin eels have a conservation status of ‘At Risk – Declining’ and are only found in NZ. Freshwater eels are heavily affected by human activities, such as pollution, the building of dams, loss of vegetation near their habitat, and overfishing.
