ATANE DEEP SEA PORT SCHEME CRITICISED AGAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 51, 31 May 1950, Page 5

ATANE DEEP SEA PORT SCHEME CRITICISED AGAIN

The contention that - Tauranga is the only “open and workable port on the east coast between Auckland and Wellington” and criticism ' -sea port fts similar to a plan put_forJK 1919 when “Whakatane n an extravagant and expansive mood” is contained in a letter to the Bay of Plenty Times, Tauranga, from a correspondent who signs himself “Vigilance,” “Vigilance” wrote a long letter in which he expressed his views freely and often aimlessly. On Whakatane he states:— “Nature has provided only one < pen and workable port on the East Coast between Auckland and Wellington and that port is Tauranga.”

Extravagant Mood Referring to an article in a city paper recently, embodying a grand plan of a proposed ocean liner wharf at the bar at the mouth of Whakatane river, “Vigilance” istate'g:' IT seem to remember that plan. In years when my beard Was black—be precise in 1919—•

w when Whakat&ne was in an extravagant and expansive mood, that plan, if it\.is the original, was in the Bay of Plenty It w».3 then accepted as a V-plan for an inland harbour to berth 8000-10,000 ton liners. “This was really in opposition to - Tauranga proposals to develop the natural deep water harbour at Tauranga—so it is a case v of history repeating -itself. The Whakatane 1919 plan was to cost a modest million or two. The stone for the structure was to be brought from Whale Island and the purchase of the island for that purpose was envisaged. Everything boomed, till an experienced accountant got on the job. and sanitary generally prevailed. “At that time harbour engineers did a great business ‘till it was pointed out by cool-headed businessmen that it appeared that nearly every village wittf a drain running into the sea, had an urge to build, an expensive harbour. That seems to be the complaint out 1 r friends are suffering from at the moment, but it will pass. I thought the 1919 plan was dead and so it was, but they forgot to bury the corpse,” he concludes. There is only one point wrong

Uhe criticism of “Vigilance” the present Whakatane scheme. The present plan is entirely different from the plan put forward in 1919. The present scheme provides for a deep sea port at the present mouth of the Whakatane River, the river to be diverted to enter the sea about a mile north from it’s present mouth. Much Dredging The 1919 plan provided for the ' diversion of the river but the port was to be constructed in the present harbour. It would have mean’t an enormous amount of dredging and excavation at tremendous cost. There would still have been a bar as vessels 1 would enter the harbour at the present mouth-,' which was be widened and protected by groins.

The new plan shows every signs of being feasible, and, in the opinion of some qualified engineers, an economical possibility. It Ms been examined and approved by qualified engineers, accountants and businessmen.- As one Whakatane resident stated:— “There is no corpse in the scheme

unless it is the one that may be found on the madflats of quite a number of New Zealand’s open and "workable