Gelignite to Divert River

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 24, 29 January 1937, Page 6

Gelignite to Divert River

BLASTING OPERATIONS IN MANAWATU A commencement was made yesterday by Palmerston North River Board employees, to carry out an attempt to create a small divertion of the current where the waters of the Manawatu river are eating into the bank a little north of the golf links. The immediate danger is that any further erosion will result in the river getting in behind a series of groynes protecting the bank lower down stream. The current has been forced over against the bank by the accretions to a heavy bed of shingle on the other side of the river and it is in an endeavour to remove the head of this gravel bank that the board decided to use explosives. Some thirty pipes GJ feet long have been driven into the shingle bank in a line pointing down stream, each pipe from 10 to 12 feet distant from its neighbours. Down these pipes the gelignite is dropped, each charge consisting of 25 plugs. The explosion is a heavy one, shaking the ground 100 yards off. The object is to loosen up the shingle bank with the hope that the next fresh in the river will carry some to the other side where the erosion is taking place and shift the main current nearer the centre of the river bed.