THE WAITOA DEAINAGE QUESTION.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4419, 3 June 1909, Page 3

THE WAITOA DEAINAGE QUESTION.

(To the Editor.) Sie, —I, as One of the ratepayers of the Waitoa Drainage area, beg a little space iu your valuable paper to express my views on the above much vexed suggestion and as I claim to be an authority on the drainage of low-lying lands such as obtains on the Waitoa Estate, I think that my opinions may be of some use to the general ratepayers when weighing the pros and cons of this great question. I have not missed an opportunity of reading the reports of the meetings of our so-called Drainage Beard and have ■ come to the conclusion that the Board would be much better had it not come into existence, as they seem to think that all we put them there for is to squabble and fight and the result seems to be that the Chairman has completely lost his head and is going ,to endeavour to force his opinions down our necks whether we want it or not. I, for one, was certainly very sanguine that we would have had a complete system of drainage for the whole of the block before this, but it appears that there is no decided scheme yet aud the question remaining to be answered is, when are we likely to have one ‘i It seems to me that the Board have been running on the wrong track ever since they were elected and the Chairman seems to have got the majority of the members to follow him like so many sheep on a blind track and trusting to providence to come out all right and if it is all wrong I have no doubt he will say “ Who would have thought it.” Here we are asked to vote for a loan of £6OOO to carry out a drainage scheme that we are not sure about and I am quite sure that the Chairman of the Board cannot say how it is going to effect any of us and the worst part of it is that we have not had our lands classified yet and lam forced to ask the question Mr Editor, “ What are we supposed to be, a parcel of idiots or a body of intelligent settlers In dealing with the scheme as con-’ templated by the Board I would like to ask whether the Board are acting upon the advise of experts, or are they carrying out the ideas of the Chairman, who knows as much about drainage ns the subject knows about him. If they are acting upon expert advice then all I can say is that this must be something new from the Amsrican Continent and we should ask the expert who first thought of it to come amongst us aud explain the whole workiug of it. But if it is the Chairman’s own idea then I say that it wants boiling down and passing on to those who are not sufficiently enlightened to dipost it. Any person who has studied the question of drainage of this, or any other area of country, would certainly condemn a scheme that does not follow the natural fall and no person hut one who does not know what he is doing, would think of Dying out a scheme that did not help nature as much as possible. When one comes to tl ; nk soundly of this drainage question, the more one is impressed with the laws of nature and one cannot help noticing the provisions made fur the drainage of all classes of country, it does not matter whether it is swampy or hilly country, the natural system of drainage is very evident and seeing that such is the case it is the right and proper thing to do to assist nature and not intercept its course as proposed by the Board. To explain the position of the drainage of any tract of country I must ask those interested in the dn inage of the Waitoa Estate to closely follow me in the following explanation. | All lands have had their drainage, , both underground and surface, pro- I vlded for by nature. The surface of the land has been so laid out that the water will fall to the lowest lying portion and then it is carried by the depressions clear away to the water courses and finally empties into a stream or river. The underground drainage is also , provided in a similar way by means of j what maybe termed capillary niteries, or j myriads of small pipes, all of these arc j leading to the low lying ground, hence 1 the capillary attraction to the low lying • portions of the land would be such as would soon make this portion of the land become a stagnant hole and the arteries as above mentioned would naturally become blocked up and the whole of the land is then in a very sour condition. So seeing that nature has provided this means of drainage both underground and on the surface, is it not the right and proper course to open up the natufal \ water couises ? I can assure you ', gentlemen, that until this is done we are not going to get a satisfactory system of drainage for the Waitoa Estate. But the Drainage Board by their proposed scheme do not intend to do this. There has been great capital made out of the idea of cutting the water off from its natural fall and converting it into other artificial channels to protect some of the ratepayers who hold low lying country and I say why should this be r they have no more right to such a concession than the man in the moon and why should the line of roads be made a means of stopbank to block the natural flow of water to the benefit of one section and to the detriment of the other section ?

Those ratepayers who live and hold property on the Obiue Creek, seem to think that they will he deriving great benefit if the water were cut off them, but I can assure these gentlemen that thev are not going to receive one iota of benefit until the Waitoa Fiver is opened up and it would be far better for them to advocate such a project aud let the water come in its natural course and then everybody oa the eastern watershed of the Estate would receive direct drainage and the whole business would he satisfactory.

One of the members of the Board seems to think that it would be a great sin to cut drains in private property, as he calls it, and seems to have a blind view of sticking to the roads. I may say that the only private property within the boundaries of a Drainage District is the Public Koads and the Board seems to have the idea that they must have control of these at all hazards. Does any level-headed man think for one moment that such a purely Local Body as a Drainage Board can assume control of the public roads which are the property of the nation, whilst a Drainage Board is |only there for an indefinate period and have only to look to their ratepayers’ requirements. Any man who would say that such is not the case is only stating liis own incapacity and has no right to be taken any notice of. i Thanking you, Mr Editor, for trespass-

» in ii ii mi nr, mu■■■ i i—— iug upon so much of your spice.—l am, etc., A Ratepayer. (To the Editor.) S’r, —In your issue of the Ist inslant a letter appeared signed John Williams, ?n which the writer does not seem to agree in all I am doing in connection with ;Hospital matters. I have not the time to reply at length at present, but will do so in the issue of your paper of Saturday or Tuesday next. —I am, etc. K. F. W. Lyons-Moxtgomeiiy.