PAEROA A RIVER PORT AGAIN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4386, 6 March 1922, Page 4

PAEROA A RIVER PORT AGAIN.

Sir, —The above reality can only be made impossible by public apathy and indifference towards local river problems. The question of our rivers, however, is not one merely affecting business people and residents of Paeroa, but the welfare and prosperity of the wnole of the Hauraki Plains. It to-day appears a huge pity that the recommendations of the splendid 1910 Rivers Commission were so largely set aside. Under their proposals vast improvements in the Ohinemuri and Waihou rivers would' have been effected at a nominal cost of some £130,000. To-day the completion of newer schemes is expected to reach £600,000. The principal rea-t son, apparently, for this heavy increase lay in the parochial attitude of certain riverbank owners, who objected successfully to having low but quite large enough stop-banks placed some chains back on their riverfrontages. By having this proposal deleted, it became necessary to put far larger banks if the same were to be closer to the river. .Hence one of the chief causes of the present huge estimates to complete river improve-i ments, etc. It may not be too late yet in certain areas to have this later policy modified and thus made cheap; er. The reason I have mentioned the above is that the present huge costs must react on any further Government assistance re the essential policy of dredging the rivers after protection for the land has been secured. And dredging is the only alternative to future raising of stop-banks, etc.

In this regard, the recommendations of the recent Rivers Commission is of particular value, which is, that all slimes or sludge of a certain description be taxed Is per ton, and all of another and finer description 4d per ton for the privilege of using our rivers as a sludge channel. When one considers the dividends paid to date by the huge mines on the Ohinemuri River (£5,000.000 to date in respect of one company), and the still immense possibilities ahead of the same mining areas, a tax of 4d .to Is per ton on debris dumped in our riverr would provide the means and more to make Paeroa. a first-class river port again. I am sure if the various local bodies and farming organisations get together at once something valuable and tangible can be accomplished, and our greatest asset, river service, safeguarded. W. D. KEYS/