Tonight’s Prime News gave $10m as the cost of precautions for the lahar. The Ohakune policeman is glad he can now go more than 20 minutes from the station.

Still nobody has been rude enough to interrupt the official self congratulations with a reminder that it was all unneccessary. For less than $200k (the highest estimate) three years ago a bulldozer could have cut a smaller channel than the water has now cut and there would have been no lahar.

Just after Christmas 2004 a friend and I climbed up to have a look at the tephra “dam”. It was a gentle saddle. Even amateur I, with my bulldozer,could have cut the trench in a week or so. An expert operator with a bigger machine might have taken only a couple of days.

Many New Zealanders have been up above the Crater Lake on bulldozers. In the 1950s and 60s you could ride up on a bulldozer modified to carry skiers.

But now the Gaia worshippers have taken over our secular state. They would rather bulldoze thousands of tons of spoil nearer the desert road, and spend 50 times more, than challenge the pretensions of those who invented new “spiritual” reasons to let the risk mature.