CORRESPONDENCE.

Motueka Star, Volume I, Issue 29, 19 November 1901, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir : Your interesting article on "The Motueka River," taken in connection with the Rivers Commission Report, brings it home foreibely to us that our Rivers want seeing to, or one of these times, when we get anything like an "Old Man" flood we shall have a calamity like that which occurred in Hawk's Bay a few years ago. As an observer of the ways of rivers, 1 have noticed that a moderately wide course of beach is kept quite clear of any growth to hold the river in • time of flood, the silt will not lodge, but directly a growth is allowed, if it is only in the form of rush bunches, the silt" will pile up round them every time there is a flood— much more so when it is blackberries, gorse and willows—till the beach is higher than the adjoining land, and the river is obliged to keep the narrow channel which it occupies in fine weather or force a new channel. A case very much in point is to be seen under the middle p.irt of the Motueka bridge, .where a growth of blackberries and rubbish is spreading and grasping a layer of silt every flood, until soon the water-way under the bridge will be too small, and then there will be a catastrophe. If the County Council can't see its way to do the work, the local authorities and property owners ought to try and remedy the evil. To grub the blackbeeries in such a case, is difficult and expensive, as the

roots have been- silted up from a considerable depth, but if they were cut close to the surface of the ground, and burnt up two or three times in the y r ear, it would prevent the evil from increasing. I am, etc., Mountain Torrent. Riwaka, Nov 18th 1901.