Local board member and community constable says it will be hard for police to determine who cut the big anchor cable on the 10-metre tower; community must come together and stop pointing fingers
The operators of a cable wakeboarding park say one of their 10-metre towers was cut down by night, in an alleged act of sabotage.
It comes after resistance from some Onehunga groups to renewed resource consent for the Rixen NZ towers, cables, jetties and ramps on Te Tauranga Lagoon.
That was followed by concern at the company and council's perceived failure to open the sluice gates as waters rose in the January 27 floods, contributing to damage and transport disruption.
READ MORE: * Sluice-gates didn't open: 'We're petrified it might happen again' * State of emergency: Auckland floods 'a wake-up call'
Community constable Don Allan, speaking in his capacity as a member of the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki local board, says the responsibility for opening the sluice gates lay with the council, not the water park operator.
"The community can't go taking things into their own hands," he says. "There's a lot of people who have been affected by those floods around the Beachcroft Ave area. Everyone has been through a tough time – we just need people to work together and get over what's happened."
Don Allan says there have been comments critical of Rixen NZ from a local dog-walking group, but he has no reason to believe that is connected to the damage. "The damage to Rixen's property is totally unacceptable, regardless, and poses safety issues," he says.
Maungakiekie-Tāmaki board deputy chair Debbie Burrows lives near the lagoon on Beachcroft Ave, which was flooded. The waters also overflowed the lagoon and swamped the south-western motorway to the airport and Manukau.
In the days after, Burrows told Newsroom she would be seeking the restoration of remote council control of the sluice-gates, as well as an automated system triggered to open the gates when the waters rose to a certain level. She had previously supported providing Rixen control of the gates. "If council had known that the key was with someone on the North Shore, the decision would have been different."
"Rixen NZ alerted us to the damage to their derrick shortly after it occurred. We are supporting them where we can, however as this is now a police matter we cannot comment any further." – Yusuf Khan, Auckland Council
Other locals have also been critical of the failure to open the sluice gates but, as Newsroom reported at the time, the sole responsibility wasn't with Rixen as the licensed key-holder. Onehunga-based council staff also held keys to the sluice gates.
Rixen watersports park manager Mark Harrison says the northern tower is now lying in the mud at the bottom of the lagoon, which drains twice a day at low tide.
The company believes it was sabotage, he confirms. "We don't know how it happened, but one of the anchor lines has been cut."
It was the latest in a string of problems for the wakeboarding operation. As for most other businesses, lockdowns and border closures meant they had fewer customers. There were problems renewing their resource consent at Te Tauranga Lagoon, then they had faults in the power cable.
Since the January 27 floods, the southern sluice gate has been left open, which means somebody could have got to the mast when the tide was down last week. "You could walk out there if you wanted to," he says.
The company had faced criticism since the community learned that Harrison, with his key to the sluice gates, had been working on the North Shore when the floods happened and unable to get back in time. "People were getting irate on local groups and what-not – it's just they thought that the key was local."
He reiterates the council, contracted electricians and others also had keys.
"It's not the responsibility of Rixen to open the sluice gates when the storm was on – that should have fallen on the council. But something like that could never have been anticipated." – Don Allan, Maungakiekie-Tāmaki local board
On the night of the floods, low-lying Beachcroft Ave was already starting to flood before the lagoon breached surrounding banks, as torrents of floodwater poured down the slopes from Royal Oak and One Tree Hill.
But with the sluice gates closed (one was out of order for maintenance, the other had no key-holder to open it) there was nowhere for the water to escape.
On the other side of the motorway causeway, the tide in the Manukau Harbour dropped – but inside the lagoon the waters kept rising until they overflowed onto Beachcroft Ave and over-ran the southwestern motorway, creating traffic chaos and stopping emergency vehicles getting through.
Auckland Council manager leasing, Yusuf Khan says Rixen NZ is provided with a right of entry over the parkland, and an operational lease in the Onehunga Lagoon.
"Rixen NZ alerted us to the damage to their derrick shortly after it occurred," Khan says. "We are supporting them where we can, however as this is now a police matter we cannot comment any further."
Don Allan expresses disappointment that someone had taken it upon themselves to walk out on the mud flats and cut down the mast. "Who has actually done it, I have no idea. And I wouldn't like to point fingers. Though there may have been a few issues with one of the local user groups in the park, I wouldn't like to say that any of them were responsible for it."
Allan says any inquiry would be handled out of the Glen Innes Police Station, not his community team at Onehunga, so he has no knowledge of that.
"Until a police investigation is underway, I don't know whether there are even any lines of inquiry. I've known that Rixen have had quite a hard time over the last couple of years, especially with Covid. And they provide a good service down there for a lot of schools, and things like that. So on the whole, very disappointing.
"It's not the responsibility of Rixen to open the sluice gates when the storm was on – that should have fallen on the council. But something like that could never have been anticipated.
"They're now looking at having somebody down there with a key to the sluice gates, who's not associated with Rixen. It could be one of the locals, maybe even Debbie Burrows looking after it down there."
