Ominous Bulge in Devonport Sea Wall

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 179, 19 October 1927, Page 1

Ominous Bulge in Devonport Sea Wall

DREDGE STOPS WORK

SCORIA BANK UNDER PRESSURE Little Peter, the boy who saved the Dutch Lowlands by stopping a leaking wall with his hand, would have found a problem to his taste at Devonport lately. There the scoria wall built to widen Queen's Parade, at the root of the new ferry wharf, has proved incapable of holding the weight of the spoil pumped behind it by the suction dredge and operations are just now at a standstill. THE wall was built by the Devonport Borough Council of lumps i of surface scoria quarried from Rangij toto, but the texture of the blocks does not seem to have facilitated consolidation. With the wall completed, the Harbour Board’s suction dredge last week i moved to Devonport, where the huge outfall pipes were coupled together, so that silt from the sea bed could be deposited as filling between the fall | and the roadway. BULGING SEAWARD ! Trouble was encountered from the j start. The wall was so porous that j much of the spoil percolated through j it. A halt was called and the inside ! of the wall was lined with bags. This provision seemed effective until the i accumulated weight of semi-fluid material began to shift the wall and i carry it seaward. Yesterday, perforce, operations were suspended and the situation is now getting the benefit of earnest thought. It is possible that by moving the outfall pipe to the widest part of reclamation the filling can be deposited turther from the wall, which will thus be subjected to less direct pressure. Otherwise parts of the wall may hau* be rebuilt, or sealed and reinforced with concrete. When the reclamation , is completed it will be an attractively set out contribution to the charm of Devonport’s waterfront.