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THE- OUTLET OF WAIROA.

A RIVER PORT ■'.IMPORTANT HARBOUR WORKS HEARING COMPLETION

-The welfare of the distriot of Wairoa is wrapped up in its port, and for the last' 40 years there'has been agitation to provide an outlet for produce. Owing to the sparse' population there was great difficulty, in raising a big enough loan to seriously cope with the problem, but the enterprising authorities nover ceased to let the matter rest, and on May 20,1912, they had the satisfaction of seeing the first pile driven' for a contract let for £79,576, to provide a permanent entrance., For the purposes of this work authority was given by the people of the district to raise a loan of £78,000,' and the amount-of-.that drawn to date is £63,338 195.,3 d. Tho work, will be completed in about two months' time, and it is anticipated that an immediate increase will be noticeable in the imports and exports at the port. . Already the work has- given a good deal. of satisfaction, for the present summer has - seen the bar of more use for shipping than .ever before in, the history of the'port.. The vessels trading to' AVairoa at present are Messrs. Richardson and Co.'s fine little steamer Tangaroa, which provides sufficient accommodation to meet the needs of the place, and their--, scows To Aroha and ;Te Atu, and also the scow Magic, tho property of the contractor for the harbour works, Mr. Chas. F.- Pulley. During 1914 those vessels effected 201 entrances to the port, and this year they have made almost daily trips to the town. The distance from Napier, about 40 miles, 'is comfortably done by tho-Tangaroa in about four hours. Harbour Revenue. The members of tho Harbour Board, 1 who have, been in a great measure responsible for the honest expenditure of; the loan money, are Mifisrs.-i Joseph Corkill (chairman), Geo. Britnell (Government member), Alex. Sinclair. (Gov-; erfuhent member), Leonard Stacey, S. G ' Storey/ J. M. Tavlor, and J. AVrthell." /..Pilot and- harbourmaster is .Captain'l.. Fletcher, and the 1 secretary,';'. Mr. J. 0. Scott. The board has power?'to levy a rate of Id. in the £-.to provide, interest and sinking fund on the hoard's loans of £5000 and £78,000, r but.last year, in order to keep the'rates as low as possible, a''rate of Jd'./in the £ was struck. The county, for Harbour Board'purposes, has a total rateable value on capital value of £2,734,191, less Natives, £174,887, givtotal.of £2,559,304. The revenue of. the .board has been substantially in-: creasing for! the ten years, and the ooming year promises to see a big record established. In 1887 the general i revenue was_ only £98 4s. 2d., but 20 [ years",later-'it had increased to £1128 10s. 3d., while in 1909 it was up to I £1132 9s. 7d.; in 1911 te £1530 lis. 6d., and last year wharfages came to £1600 ss. 10d., pilotage and port charges £500, and rents £40', giving a total .'revenue, exclusive of loans, of £2140 ss. lOd. For such an uncertain river entrance as AVairoa has had in the past, the rise in revenue at the [port is so encouraging that the ratepayers have little to fear but that their, money has been- weir laid out, if it gives AVairoa an assured depth of water at the river's mouth. .The establishment iof a freeizing works' would naturally give the port an increased importance, and exports would soon rise to unprecedented figures for the town. As it is the import and export trade - over the river is steadily rising. The quantity of wool exported alone shows the possibility l of the place. In 1910 3565 bales of wool were sent through the port, while last year the number was up to 9677 bales, and 990 packets. Hides exported have also jumped during the last four years from 509 to-729;>skins (bundles) 467.t0 602; butter 61 boxes to 283, and a proportional increase in nearly all lines. The imports have also been steadily on the up-grade. In 1910 the general cargo imported, amounted to 4988 tons, which had increased last year to 6196 tons, and other.notable increases were: Timber, 730,320 feet to 1,156,971 feet; oats, 2793 sacks to, 4629 sacks; coalw 504 tons to '974 tons, etc. . The following comparative table for the last six ' years shows the rise and fall of imports and exports:—

MM W W W>-* MHWMMk.it> (DO t£) CO CO 5g . tO EO to CO (O t£> "i tK 00 K» M © W , it*. 03 l3HO§p cai*toroioto ,-.,-,' ** ' '' : : -4 CJ> Cn CO 10 O) (t 6 fll-aOiejliU. p+^ ■:'.-.' ? ■ '.' U' OS too enw o> S H ~1 CO *■! Ol Vt Cj* & : (£ to CO O CO CO to « ESSIES | Co CD en cj to ►"■ « '-.-•■ g ■ s I locjioon h>o>o>o> XJi Sen oom S ** ssssssb ■' I? .*f».».».»i-1 ™

THE NEW HARBOUR GIVES A PERMANENT ENTRANCE , ENGINEER CONFIDENT. During the present summer, which has been one of the,' driest experienced in the Wairoa district for many years, with a consequent effect- on the volume of water flowing .in the river, there has been better communication by the sea route than over recorded bofore. This has been directly, due to tho work carried out under the direction of the eminent marine engineer, Mr. Leslie H. Reynolds, M.I.C.E. Mr. Reynolds has had experience of most of the river problems of New Zealand, and. after previous attempts had' proved a failure, the Wairoa Harbour Board decided to consult him as to tho best means of getting over' the drawback <which : has been felt ever since the town began to require a means of egress. ' Mr.. Reynolds suggested a scheme of improvjnent which meant the raising of a loan of £78,000.. Now, as above stated, that loan has rbeeu expended, and the resultant work has given entire satisfaction to tho townspeople and tho authorities. . Mr. Reynolds himself is naturally proud that his judgment "of the situation has been so vindicated. To a representative of this journal he was at great pains to fully explain what the undertaking involved.' The engineer, without wishing' to make undue capital out of tho fact, stated that he considered the making of a permanent river entrance to AVairoa one of the most difcult engineering feats of New Zealand. This was entirely due to the fact lhat some two to three miles of shifting shingle had to be coped with. Previous to the present work, during heavy south-easterly and easterly weather- tho entrance to the Wairoa used to be completely blocked up. This does not mean that the bar, owing to an insufficiency of water, became, too shallow for even small-sized craft, but that the river's entrance was entire-

ly closed, and the river became an elongated lake. The shifting shingle, unstable as water, was moved hither and thither at 1 the impetus of both waves and wind, and'at the' end of a spell of bad weather shingle was often found piled to a height of from 16ft. to 20ft. across what had previously been a river channel, with a depth at the entrance to the sea of from 10ft. to 12ft. of water. A Bar-bound River. With no means of outlet the water accumulated behind the barrier of shingle, and often for lengthy periods the exit to the ,sea was quite done away with. Then the townspeople had to have recourse to digging an outlet for the river. When a sufficient volume of water had accumulated at the back of the shingle a dozen or more men would arm themselves' with spades and, aided by horses and scoops, would gradually work do.vn a small-channel. Soon a small trickle of water would be the result of their labours, and this would gradually increase with the force of the river behind, until the water rushed "out in great volumes and literally cut itself a way to the sea. But every channel was in a new place, perhaps hundreds of yards away from the old outlet, and soundings were : required, and much care had to be taken before the entrance was again safe for shipping. The tidal compartment of the estuaTyextends from upstream as far as Frasertowu, 14 miles away,, and the normal navigable «flow from Wairoa River is in the neighbourhood of • 180,000 to 200,000 cubic feet per minute, during normal summer conditions, but the normal discharge at the entrance, due, to ,tidal.and fresh water combined, is just upon half a million cubic feet per minute, -whereas in a flood, such as cccurred in May of last year, the river discharge alone was close upon 16,000,000 cubic feet per minute. An attempt to confine the channel to one course was made some years ago by means of longitudinal training fences, with piles driven every ten or twelve feet apart, and fencing wire stretched between and laced or partly laced with scrub. This work did not prove a success, and demonstrated that something of a more pormanont character would bavo to bo done. Mr. Reynolds's scheme was approved by the ratepayers, and a contract was let, in round figures for £80,000, to Mr. Chas. F. Pulley. Works Almost Completed. These works, now almost completed, consist of eastern and western training walls, of a combined length of 6500 feet. Between the walls the flow of the river is collected to one defined point, and k guided out in the direction normal, or at right angles to the line of shingle bank, 1 and is expected to give a clear entrance

water.- When the works arrived at the point where the difficulties began, Mr. Reynolds went to Wairoa, and for the past twelve months has resided there, so that he can give his personal attention to the undertaking when required. The difficulties to be met were explained by Mr. Reynolds, who said that every sea transports enormous quantities of shingle up or down the coast. As an instance he pointed out that during flood times there, has been over a million cubic yards completely shifted within a few hours. All this is past now, as the entrance has been permanently fixed. It may be,- and in fact is to be, expected that there will be fluctuations in the depth of the channel at the entrance, and that the sailing course will oscillate, between the walls, but such is unavoidable. There is no entrance that could have been designed, considers the engineer, to absolutely fulfill the best conditions for a river having a normal discharge of- only half a" million cubic feet per minute, and at the same time give efflux area for a heavy,flood of 16,000,000 cubic feet per minute. The River's Llmlti Questioned regarding the fall in the river, Mr. Reynolds said that it was what "the uninitiated might call very slight; that is, in' the 14 miles it was only about some 2ft. Bin. The depth varies. Abreast of the town wharf might be taken at some 18ft. to 20ft. at low water, whereas at the town bridge, half a mile, above, the depth was 60ft. to 70ft. The fall might be considered very slight by-eome people, but it was not so.. In some of the best rivers it was considerably less than this. The Wanganui, for instance, had a fall at low water of less than five-eigths of an inch to the mile for a distance of 15 miles, totalling about nine inches. The old adage "Still waters run deep" had a very special bearing on all river improvement works. Ho was of opinion, although there were conditions' that altered this, that where they got the least velocity they got tho best scouring, effect. , ' Will there be a'possibility. of furthor deepening the bar to let boats of over 200 tons up,the river? Mr. Reynolds was asked. He replied that that could be accomplished, but he should say tho limit would be when they attained a depth of about loft, at low water, and some 20ft. to 22ft. at high water. The river in its tidal compartments woidd not contain sufficient volume for improving Iroyond that. He would not care to pin himself to any definite estimate, offhand, as te what that would cost, but he should sav, apart from dredging in the river, that £40,000 to £50',000 should readily accomplish the extension of the mole seaward to obtain those depths. Aft Requirements Met. - At present he did not think that bigger boats than the Tangaroa would be able to enter the river, because time would have to he allowed for tho vast quantity of shingle which had been stirred up in the vicinity of the en-

trance to be driven ashore on to the shingle bank, seaward of the entrance walls.' Further, a considerable quantity of dredging, some 200,000 to 250,000 cubic yards, would require to be removed from immediately inside the entrance, up-stream for about one mile and a half, where the river was exceedingly broad, and was encumbered with shingle interlaced with snags. However, the clearing of that obstruction should not be a difficult matter, and he understood that the Harbour Board was considering it at the present time. Wairoa now had, he considered, a,permanent entrance quite sufficient to meet the present requirements of the district. The contractor, Mr. Pulley, thinks the people of Wairoa are. now on the right lines to have a permanent entrance te their river. The Tesults 60 far, considering that there has been no freshes to cleat out the channel, are all that could be desired.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19150211.2.8.1

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2382, 11 February 1915, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,236

THE- OUTLET OF WAIROA. Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2382, 11 February 1915, Page 4

THE- OUTLET OF WAIROA. Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2382, 11 February 1915, Page 4

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