After being alerted to plastic fibres coming out of a newly upgraded seawall in Raglan over Matariki weekend, council acted swiftly to remedy the situation and mitigate it happening again.
The reason the 50mm polypropylene fibres become dislodged despite being set in concrete is under investigation, but it’s not immediately apparent – it’s highly unusual for this to happen. Several fibres were found in the environment, including near Wi Neera Street opposite the Police Station and on Ngaranui Beach.
Since last Friday (27 June), we have completed several remedial actions. This follows actions that were taken during the week (from Monday 23 June) where specialist crews responded and monitored the situation daily. This included manually scrubbing the seawall and removing dislodged fibres.
We have conducted three sweeps of Ngarunui Beach with Council staff and contractors. On the first sweep, on Friday 27 June, we found five fibres on the beach. We did another sweep on Monday 30 June and on Tuesday 1 July and no further fibres were found.
We will continue to monitor the beach, including the surrounding areas near the walkway, as scheduled Council open spaces management of Raglan.
Yesterday, contractors burnt back the loose fibres coming out of the concrete on the seawall, melting it into the concrete. This will ensure they can’t become dislodged again and enter the environment.
Further cosmetic work to the walkway is scheduled – standard on any construction project – such as smoothing out concrete under the balustrade. We will need to close the walkway to complete this. The date for this is TBC but will be after the school holidays.
These remedial works, including burning back the fibres, are included in the captured works under the current project, meaning there is no further cost to the ratepayer, or to Council. Read more.
