A Christchurch man claims a set of broken floodgates on the Avon Heathcote Estuary are allowing salt water to soak into his land, killing trees and grass, and forcing million dollar earthworks.
Creag Foxton-McCulloch, a former coastal surveyor, says he's been asking the Christchurch City Council to fix the gates for around 14 months without success.
He believes salt water is now filtering up a fresh-water stream on his property, bringing crabs upstream, contaminating the groundwater, killing tree roots and increasing flood risk on his land.
"This was a matter of putting two guys in a crane truck and a hiab down there," he says.
"I've even offered to go down there to put them back on, or get people to put them back on, and they've said, 'no, it's in the new budget', they're not looking at that at all."
Mr Foxton-McCulloch, whose land is also earmarked to be at risk from sea level rise, is now carrying out extensive earthworks at his own cost to protect the land from flood risk. He's raising the entire 7.65 hectare property by 1.2 metres, in an operation he claims could cost up to $1 million.
"By the time it's finished, we'll be one of the poorest people in the cemetery," he says.
"This is why we pay council rates, to do the basic things, which is protect our property, water, sewage, roading, and it seems they've forgotten that."
The floodgates, which are partially sitting on the river floor, survived the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, leaving Mr Foxton-MuCulloch confused about their sudden breakdown early last year. He says the council has tried to buy his property on several occasions.
"To suddenly find them on the bottom of the stream made us very surprised. Were they helped there? Did they suddenly decide to leap off? What happened to them?"
"If we left here with our feet wet and packed up and went somewhere else, they'd be very happy. They could expand Ferrymead Park into this area or do what they've done on the other side and build industrial buildings."
The Heathcote man, who has a long 16-year history with council over a range of land issues, says he's willing to spend the million dollars on earthworks to protect the land for his children.
"That's what I'm trying to prevent for the future generations basically, so instead of being left with a swamp land, thanks to council actions, they're left with something positive."
Local councillor Paul Lonsdale refuted the claims this afternoon, saying the "current thinking" was that the floodgates served no real purpose. An investigation was underway and a report would be delivered to the council.
"The claim that actually it's causing issues of water on his land is not fully substantiated," he says.
"There's salt water coming in on certain tides, absolutely, there's no question about that, it's whether the floodgate will actually stop that from happening."
The councillor also claimed Mr Foxton-McCulloch's property was about as high as the king tide, meaning it was vulnerable to flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise.
"Salt water contamination happens all around the estuary and does flow up rivers, and does kill vegetation, and that's just nature."
Cr Lonsdale was more concerned with the suggestion the council had ignored Mr Foxton-McCulloch.
"If we haven't communicated with this guy, then we need to apologise for a start off," he says.
"That to me is probably where the problem lies, it's the communication of what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what the result will be at the end of it. It's that process that I think is faulty."
The Christchurch City Council said it was unable to find anyone to comment.
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