WAIHOU RIVER WORKS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4374, 6 February 1922, Page 2

WAIHOU RIVER WORKS.

SETTLERS COMPLAINING.

STOP-BANKS OR DREDGING.

Strong objections to some of the operations that are being carried out by the Public Works Department in connection with, flood protection works on the Waihou River are being raised , by settlers below Netherton. Last week’s flood has made these critics more emphatic in some of their assertions. The. position is this : Flood-banks have been made from some distance above Paeroa tp Netlierton, the works from Netherton to Paeroa' being small in comparison with the wide banks above. As fa r as can be learned it is proposed to carry on the small scale banks below Netherton, and already men are at work ring-barking the willows which) border the banks. The contention (if the settlers concerned is that as the river widens to perhaps five chains just below Netherton, it is able -o carry all the flood waters that will come down the river for years to come.

It is affirmed that, seeing that above the stop-banks flood waters still escape to the west and so find their way to the sea by way of the P.iako,'the lower reaches of the. river will not be seriously taxed until stop* banks are raised along all the parts* of the stream which now afford a spillway. When these works, are accomplished, and it is stated that they will riot be finished for years, the lower reaches will have to carry 'all the flood water of the river. It must, of course, be left to engineers to say whether the capacity of the lower stream will then be sufficient. The settlers realise this, but, admitting that then the channel will not cope with flood water, they assert that the policy should not be to raise the level by means of stop-banks, but to lower it by means of dredging. Their contention is that since 1895, when the Ohinemuri, which joins the Waihou, Was declared a sludge channel, the spoil from the mines at Waihi has gradually been silting up the lower reaches of the river and increasing the difficulties both of drainage and navigation.

The silt has greatly affected the value of the river as a waterway for ships, and those complaining state that .the method of building stopbanks. involving the destruction of the willows which form the only scenic attraction of the river, will help to perpetuate present difficulties besides adding greatly to the debts, which, they understand,, the land affected will one day have to assume. Whatever be the exigencies of the future, settlers below Netherton; who are quite content with the present position seeing that flood waters do not there rise as high as a spring tide, desire to see no further expenditure on their part of the. river, believ* ing that the money would be much better spent on the construction of the Paeroa-Pokenp railway.