Colin Young – a lifetime of protecting the south from floods

Southland had many flooding issues in the early 1970s, which led farmers to petition the Southland Catchment Board to provide rural flood protection. “We had some major floods in the seventies and eighties. That’s when I was brought in, post the 1978 floods where most of the South Island flooded.”

While work was already underway on the rural schemes, these floods highlighted inefficiencies in the network. There was a mammoth task ahead for him. Colin was placed in charge of the flood protection designs of the Mataura, Ōreti, Aparima and Waiau catchments. This work was already in the pipeline and in some areas had begun before his arrival, however the 1978 flood was the catalyst for the government to grant and fasttrack funding to the Catchment Board for these projects. This funding was allocated through the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority (NWSCA).

“If the works were more than $50,000, cabinet approval was required for the government subsidy.” Then when the 1984 floods occurred, the work was prioritised even further by the government and the Invercargill city flood protection was also included. “Everyone thought the city was pretty good until the ’84 floods and large parts of Invercargill went under water.”

Colin had planned to come south for a few years and then head to the Middle East for work opportunities, but when the 1984 floods hit, he decided to stay and help a community in need. He was part of the Gore, Mataura and Wyndham urban upgrades, along with the Winton Dam and Ōreti River rural stop banks. “As well as being the design engineer, I also took on the role of site engineer because we did a lot of the construction in those days.”

Colin takes great satisfaction in knowing the designs worked, most recently in the February 2020 floods in Eastern Southland. “It proved the stop banks worked to their design.”