A culvert which was more than 200 metres from the river is now on the edge of the riverbank and the line where his fencing was is now in the middle of the newly-formed waterway.
Environment Canterbury will not allow him to change the course of the river back the way it was without a Resource Consent, so he has paid for a bulldozer and spent a lot of time, with the help of friends, moving rocks to backfill and form a stop bank to protect the remaining part of his land.
“It has probably cost about $12,000 so far,’’ Prattley said.