OAMARU EROSION

Evening Star, Issue 22448, 19 September 1936, Page 14

OAMARU EROSION

RAILWAY ENGINEERS’ PLANS MINISTER CONFIDENT OF SUCCESS [From Our Ows Correspondent.] OAMARU, September 19. That the General Manager and Chief Engineer of the Railways Department were fully alive to the seriousness of the erosion problem along the Oamaru foreshore is the purport of a letter received by the Oamaru Borough Council from the Minister of Railways (tho Hon. D. G. Sullivan). Correspondence has also been received from the Rev. A. H. Nordmeyer, M.P., in which ho states that he fully agrees with tho Minister’s attitude and is quite satisfied that tho engineers will do the job. Mr Sullivan added that the council could have every confidence in the ability of the department’s engineers to cope with the problem. They had had to meet similar situations elsewhere, and ia every case had been able to deal adequately with the matter. He was very doubtful if there were men in New Zealand more fitted to report on the Oamaru problem than the department’s own engineers. The considered opinion of the department’s engineers is set out as follows: (1) The proposed extension of tho breakwater is likely to have a very beneficial effect upon the erosion problem. It will certainly protect the Borough Council’s property in the vicinity of the gasworks, and that protection will continue to a lesser extent along the railway property. (2) Until such time as this extension is completed the erosion will be minimised by the driving of piles and the dumping of larger stones over tho ditf. (3) In order to minimise the effect of the drift it is proposed to run out a number of groynes. These will bo placed at such an angle that they will trap the drifting shingle. Work will bo commenced on these at an early date. (4) It is obvious that the recent damage has been accentuated by the absence of shingle, and it is definitely undesirable that further quantities of shingle should bo removed from the foreshore