TROUBLE AT TAUMARUNUI.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 143, 4 November 1912, Page 2

TROUBLE AT TAUMARUNUI.

RIVER CUTTING AWAY BANK. The wide flat valley on which Taumarunui stands is all alluvial. It has been formed by the Wanganui river in the course of centuries shifting its bed. Erosion and depositing of silt go on with extraordinary rapidity in the soft pumice country, anil residents of even a few years' standing in the township have witnessed the eating away of whole sections of land. Not long ago the bulk of the water (says the correspondent of the Herald) began to flow through an old watercourse, which depicted the volume of water below the confluence of the Ongarue with the Wanganui river, and so threatened the tourist traffic'. The River Trust blocked up the entrance to that watercourse and forced the main river to the Taumarunui side of the wide shingly flat. The river is now cutting away a narrow strip of land granted for an esplanade by the natives, between their land and the river. The River Trust and the Maori Land Board have been repeatedly asked to arrest this destruction by diverting the course of the river, and means have now been suggested by which this could be done. The suggestion is to construct a groyne diagonally across the river at a higher point, so as to throw the current lo the other side of the shingly bank, and make it run along an island in the river. It would also be necessary to cut a shallowtrench through the shingle to give the current a start. As the jurisdiction of the River Trust does not extend higher than the confluence of the Ongarue and Wanganui rivers, it will be necessary to approach the Government with a view to having this done.