THE CONFERENCE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4419, 26 May 1922, Page 2

THE CONFERENCE.

PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT.

AND REFERENCE BOARD.

The conference between Public Works Department engineers a'hd direct. and indirect contributors to the cost of the Waihou and Ohinemuri Rivers Improvement Scheme commenced in the Coronation Chambers, Paeroa, yesterday. The engineers present were Messrs F. W. Furkert, Engineer-in-Chief to the Public Works Department.; A. J. Baker, District Engineer for Auckland province; L. May, District. Engineer at Paeroa, for Thames Valley and Hauraki Plains. The members present comprised the majority of; those who attended the meeting of the Board at Paeroa on Wednesday, as reported in the “Gazette” supplement to-day, and also Messrs H. M. Wynyard, Auckland Chamber qf Commerce ; F. W. Walters, chairman Piako County Council: Mr J. H. Banks, superintendent of the Waihi Goldmining Co., Ltd.; an i Mr H. Poland, M.P. for Ohinemuri. Mr E. W. Porritt, chairman of the Thames Valley Drainage Reference Board, presided. THE SCHEME. Mr Furkert then outlined the scheme. The problem was to deal with flooded areas; roughly, the ■scheme was to carry down two parallel banks from the abattoirs on the Ohinemuri and from Mangaiti-bridge on the Waihou, and carry these banks down until the flood waters were carried safely put. The various streams had to be flood-gated; deviations made. 4 Mr Keys : You make no mention of navigation. Mr Furkert: The building of; the banks with material taken put of the river s will improve navigation ; later on the worst, shpaling places will be attended to. A dredge could not be sent to a shoal and then shifted some mile.-: away; the work would have to dene in order. Mr Walters: Is it proposed to dredge the Waihou above Paeroa as well as below ? 1 Yes, that has been done for the past eight years, but the holes so made fl:l up again within 18 months. THE CRUX OF THE POSITION. Mr S. Leah, superintendent of the Grand Junction Company, wanted to know when ,the. original work which the first commission was set up to deal with, would be started ? and what were the companies now paying for ? The various commissions had pointed out that the Department had done virtually nothing to improve the river and deal with the silt. Mr Furkert replied that the statement made in the late Commission report was inaccurate ; the Department had been building stop-banks, which would not need to have been nearly so high if there had been no Shining silt in the river. NO PROVISION FOR NAVIGATION. Mr Furkert said there was no provision made in the 1910 Act at all fpr improving river navigation. . LAND DRAINAGE. Mr F.. L. Kenrick. mentioned that the Board was unanimous in desiring the Department to carry out the improvement works. ' In 191718 the swamp .ipnd in Wiggins’ Block was only subject to floods in wet weather. A small stop-bank had been made to stop the overflow, A suggestion had also been made to put,in small floodgates. The water had been kept in and the drains had been blocked. The settlers were now unable to get to their land. He urged that the Department should go- on with their original intention. The work could be done for £l4OO. The work should be done, and done quickly.- A large area was undei water. There had been a pencilled note at. the Department, “Why did not the settlers do the drains themselves ?” He maintained they were not legally able to do so. The man who was on thiat land was making nothing out of it. Mr Furkert: I presume that when the land is drained it will be worth a great deal more. Mr Kenrick : Yes, it "will. Mr Furkert: Wouldn’t it be a fqir thing to levy a special rate ? Mr Kenrick thought they should contribute what was a fair thing, but he would not like to talk of a special rate. Mr Furkert promised to give the matter all the consideration he could. Mr Porritt said that when the work was completed it would make the land valuable, and some steps should be taken to see that .these men would carry their share of the burden.. Mr Wynyard said there would be better facilities than ever before. Mr Furkert said he had not discussed any special charges with Mr Baker, but he thought those settlers should pay more. The Department could make the required drain and make those natives pay. Mr Kenrick: I can well assume by your remarks that, this work will be completed within three months. Mr Furkert: I’m like Mr Coates. .1 can’t make any promises. Mr. Furkert, replying to Mr Keys, said some of; the settlers had been offered the work and"had not accepted it.

Mr, Keys said some of the settlers were co far away from the work that they could not "take up the work. He brought forward the contention that the work'should be spread all over the river. He had known of settlers who had had to rig up boxes for the pigs to shelter on in flood-time. There were large areas which suffered from damage, and a lot of'the settlers would have tp leave the land if some improvements were not effected. There was no reason why the # stopbanks should not be Completed. There were now two stop-banks in his.area. The depth of wateY had been increas-" ed. By completing the work it would be supplying some place *of refjuge in time of flood- Where there are al-< ready small stop-banks there had not been any flood. SCHEME OF WORKING; Mr Furkert said it was not a good thing to start little pieces of work, but it they could get enough men io do all the .work it could easily ne done along the whole area. Mr Keys sa’d if some work could bo done locally it would be a set-off- In

the meantime those areas wepe being badly flooded out. Mr Furkert wished to know if the settlers w’ould do the whole work all along the river. Mr Keys said they would be pleased to tackle a suggestion sucji as that if the matter was left open. If the Association knew that ;he Department would put on enough men to complete the work straight away they would be satisfied. Mr A. J. Baker said the settlers in RotoKohu had not been turned down to the extent that Mr Keys suggested. He would be wrong to let contracts on the lower end and sacrifice those higher up. Mr Furkert pointed out that any settlers who wanted work were to have it. Mr Keys: But none of them have accepted it. /Mr Furkert: Well, that’s their own .fault. It was shortly after'the floods when that offer had been made. Mr Keys maintained that the men had been top far away from their' homes. Mr Furkert said the Jiigh wages required had been top high for the financial state of the country. If the Government ‘did not drop the whole concern more, men would be pht on. I’f the settlers were so well off that they did Jiot want work the Department would dp the work in its own way. - Mr Leah said the matter had not been ameliorated in Mr Keys’ district, but had beep worse. Mr Keys : May we take it that- the Department will put on its own labour if the settlers would not take the work ? Mr Furkert: Yes. ” Mr Keys added that it would have been\ a -treat for people tp see the houses turned into Noah’s arks. COST OF THE SCHEME. Mr Kenrick .asked for information regarding the cost of the scheme. Mr Furkert said in Mr Baker’s opinion the scheme would cost £625,000, but he thought the estimate was rather oil the high side. There may be things which could be hedged to reduc l the work by several thousands of I pounds. There were also some cases where small areas of land could be left out of the scheme and the owners compensated. About 2.000,000 yards would be obtained by dredging. Mr W. K. McLean: Suppose you had all the machinery you required, how much would the cost be peduqed? Mr Furkert said that if machinery cost £50,000 the work may be reduced £30,000. The machinery did not do the work much cheaper than by hand labour, but a gneat deal more could be done in a day. Mr McLean asked if; the Government could obtain machinery and do the work cheaper. Mr Furkert said the Government’ would rather spend the money in employing men out of work. Mr Leah said Mr Furkert had made mention that the scheme may be dropped. He wished tp know' more about it. Mr.' Furkert said two-thirds of the cost was to be paid by the mining interests, and the fnoney spent on the works now was beifig spent without authority. There appeared to be a fair' argument about stopping the whole, thing. I MR. DONALDSON’S lEWS. Mr. Donaldson said every member of thp Board had in his mind a more eomp’ehensive scheme of land drain--age. Stop-banks were to cost £50,000, and It was thought it would remedy the evil. It was only the Cpmmisson’s opinion that this work ■was part and parcel of the first work. It was contrary to the opinions of the people in the district that this was the first work. It had previously been estimateu by Ferguson’s commission that f‘.c cast would not be more than £150,J)00. That scheme had. been found to be faulty. He submitted the inaugural commission’s reference was to wbat extent the-mining industry had injured the river. Twenty per cent, ofl the gold duty had beep taken for the first work. He was quite prepared to pccept the recommendation of the first commission. It would be absurd to say .that the Government would take 20 per cent, of the revenue this year and the whole of it next year. Waihi did not injure the river, and y6t they were lequired to pay half the cost of the work. The Waihi Borough: had been unable t 6, meet the position, and while the first people had robbed them of 20 per cent, the next had robbed them of 50 per cent. The Public Works Department had submitted a table of. suggested allocations which were drawn up by Mr. Baker. The commissioners bad reduced every contributing body to a third with the exception of Paeroa which had been reduced to less Ihan onesfourth. Waihi’s contribution had gone up to 50 per ment. The thing was' absurd. Mr Kenrick said that the final settlement came It would bo found that Waihi would have to find such, a small amount thiat they would have to tax the Salvation Army half, a crown. He was sure a big portion should be, taken ,off the Waihi' Borough and put on to the lands. Mr. Wynyard asked Mr. Furkert what reductions would' be made from the scheme. Mr.*'Furkert said the plant would be available for rale at the end of the work, and the unit cost would be reduced. The unit cost, was rather higher than at the present time. The work proposed to be left out was land, running parallel and close to the high land. Mr A. R. Robinson (chairman of the Ohinemuri County Council) : Do you proopse to stoi>-bank bothi sides of the Hikutaia Stream ? He had heard the Department was to put a big drain at the mouth of. the stream. It was very .necessary to have the Hikutaia Stream .Mr Ke}s asked if the Department could give the revised estimate blj the £625,000 scheme. Mr. Furkert said there had been no revised scheme, but "when they had. gone- further into the matter it had been found that they could hedge a bit. They had a bit up theiKsleeves.' Mr. Keys said that when the - cost was put at £625,000 it had been based on-the. high cost of labour. Mr. Furkert: Yes.

, Mr. Keys did not think the Department had allowed for compensation and claims. PERENIKI AREA. Mr. Furkert said' the Department had estimated the Joss the people would have in exchanging their land dr giving it up altogether. The land given up would then be leased or sold at a loss. Mr. Keys wished to know if any figures concerning that had been made out. It might be possible later on to send delegates to Parliament, and the delegates would require fig ures to work on. Mr. Fudkert said about £30,000 would cover all cost Oif compensation. Mr. Keys said there appeared to he nobody against having the Betterment Clause revised. Mr. Furkert said the "betterment had not been taken into consideration. i , Mr. Keys said there may be a very strong move to have the Betterment Clause revised. Mr. Donaldson speaking further on Waihi’s contribution, said they were outrageously hit. Mr. McLeod, in regard to the area at Pereniki’s Bend, said he had been told that the expense would be too great to wararnt the protection of that area. The only alternative was to buy out those settlers and give them land elsewhere. Mr Coates had • promised to go into the matter on return to Wellington. He wished to know when their cTtse would be dealt with. Mr. Furkert said he could not tell Mr. McLeod what the Minister would do, but he would make it his business to find out. Mr. Leah said speculators were holding land bought at very low prices and holding it for benefits to accrue from the scheme. Mr. Furkert said these men would need to • help pay fjor the scheme. Mr. Buchanan asked Where the Department proposed to save .the large sum they foreshadowed. CRITERION BRIDGE SHAKY. Mr Furkert said the cost, would be saved in raising the Criterion bridge and railway bride. The Criterion bridge would fall down any time, and they proposed to wait till it could not i be used any more and build another one higher. MORE ABOUT COST. Mr Wynyard asked to r the cost of working the suction dredge. Mr. Baker: About £4OO per month. Mr. Wynyard said it was proposed first to put in the temporary stopbanks and flood-gates and later strengthen them. It was contended that the strengthening of the’ stopbanks should be a continuous work over a period of years. The 1919 Commission’s estimate for putting the stop-banks in was to £BO,OOO. If the first stage was carried througn, the strengthening of the stop-ibanks would be done by z the dredge. He advocated building stop-banks and strengthening them over a period of years. Mr. Furkert said there was a certain amount of dirt to be shifted, and Mr. Wynyard’s proposal would only be drawing out the work. AN INTERESTING SUGGESTION. Mr. Donaldson wondered whether they were wise in working on the cost of £600,000 for the banks. Would it not be better and cheaper an amalgamation of the Thames Harbour Board scheme and the drainage scheme was arranged? He maintained that the co-operated work could be done cheaper. / Mr. Furkert: It*fs a very good suggestion if it would be feasible, but I’m afraid it would not bq. feasible. If it could be carried out, so--much the better. • .. > Mut C W. Harris, referring to the suggested administration, daid it might be advisable for the Government to take over the lower wharves oh tte Waihou River. The Thames Harbour Board was really the Hauraki Harbour Board. Could it not be made the controlling body for the river wharves also ? The Thames Harbour Board district extended three miles above Turua. The Board had recently constructed a wharf at Turua second to none ifor its size in the Dominion. The Harbour Board "—could 'control the river works, and wiiy constitute another board ? The Harbour Board to-day was a county board and a Hauraki board. He would urge that the matter be given the Department’s earnest consideration. Regarding the collection of dues, he maintained that the Harbour Board could levy a charge on every hull which came into the area. He deprecated dual control. Mr. Kenrick said they were opening up new ground. Mr. Furkert said it was not proposed to deal with, the proposal just now. IMPROVEMENT OF NAVIGATION. Mr. McLean wished information on how soon the navigation Would pe ■improved. Mr. Furkert Said the navigation would improve when the scheme was completed. The Department was taking 2 000,000 yards from the river. Mr. Silcock said the boats had not stuck in the river for some time, but <the buats were not carrying the same cargoes now. He asked when the dredging would commence. Mr. Furkert: They have been in hand now for six years. Mr. Silcock said the Department was increasing the width of the Waihou River. Mr Furkert.: This is the first I have heard of it. Who’s doing it ? Mr Silcock : , Your dredges. Tnere was a shoal between the Kotu and Ngararahi cuts. It had been asked that the shoal should be removed. The question of enormous expense of removal of the dredge had then been brought up. The dredge had later been moved for another purpose, and was working near the place where the shoal was He maintained- that the river was not being kept open, and there must be some scheme behind the Department not to assist navigation. He would like the Department to go into the.matter of the shoals in the river. Mr. Furkert: Who was shutting up the navigation; and why arc they wanting to shut it up ? Mr. Silcock: What they will gain