Environment Southland staff are disappointed river
monitoring equipment at the Waihōpai Dam has been stolen while other equipment
has been badly damaged.
A solar panel was taken, cables were cut and cameras and
mounting structures damaged in the incident which happened shortly after
midnight on Monday morning, Environment Southland’s Senior Technical Specialist
Hydrology Michael McDonald said.
Police are investigating.
This camera is one of seven currently installed around
Southand recently as part of a project to make river information more
accessible for the public. Environment Southland uses this information for
flood monitoring, stream health and asset management.
“The Waihōpai Dam camera is really well used by people
planning a walk, ride or run along the flood bank and for checking out river
conditions. It’s also been known to capture auroras,” he said.
The web cameras made climate and weather information more
relatable as they can see what’s happening in near real time, he said.
“This kind of incident is extremely frustrating as these
are community assets. We hope to have the cameras up and running again soon.”
All cameras are carefully sited, to protect privacy of both
river users and neighbouring roads and properties while providing the best
views of the waterway and incoming weather.
The images provided by the camera enable the community to
view environmental data alongside (near) real-time imagery collected by
automated cameras with pan-tilt-zoom function programmed to capture different
still images every 15 minutes, supporting different views which are visible on
the Environment Southland website.
