HARBOR CONSTRUCTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 July 1921, Page 2

HARBOR CONSTRUCTION.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I have read with interest in your issue of the 22nd Inst., a letter from Mr. D. K. Morrison and also your editorial on the same, and also the letter from the same gentleman and your foot-note in this morning’s paper, and, with your permission, I would like to make a few remarks thereon. You say: "The area between the present breakwater and the wall would be v shaped, the water would rush in, scour out the sand already deposited there, and in time undermine the root of the breakwater, and cause a greater displacement of water in the harbor than ever.” If you examine the plan you will find that the Mikotahi-Lion RockMoturoa wail would form with the breakwater an angle of 92 degrees, or more than a right angle, and so cannot truly be described as a v. Further, the heavy seas from the north would run parallel to the wall and would strike the breakwater at exactly the same angle as they do at present. Now turn to the Moturoa-Breakwater wall, and you will find that with the breakwater it forms an angle of 55 degrees, going westward, which is a very decided v, and consequently all the heavy seas which now strike the Breakwater so violently, and carry such immense quantities 6f sand over the wall into the harbor would be concentrated into the contracted v, nad all the dire consequences you predict from the Mikotahi-Lion • Rock-Moturoa work would be accentuated. You say sand would be deposited in this v, but that which is already deposited in the case of the often socalled v would be scoured out, and I do not see why that should be 'so in one case and not in the other. Again <you say tills morning that the Mikotahi-Moturon would entail the scrapping of all the existing work. In this you are entirely mistaken. The prevailing winds are from the west and south-west, and the proposed wall would give the much needed protection to the shipping. The north westerly winds u o not occur more often than perhaps two or three times a month, and certainly the wall would not alter matters in that respect, but as I say the prevailing winds are not from ttat direction. In reference, to the sand silting up in the angle formed by the Moturoa-Breakwater wall, what would happen would be this The heavy westerly gales and seas would first, greatly increase the difficulty of working the shipping at the wharf owing to the seas which now press tire end of the breakwater being confined by the wall, then after a number of year some sand would settle, not in the space of the v, as the water there would be continually in ’motion, but further out, forming a kind of bar somewhere about halfway to the Mikotahi-Breakwater line. After a further lapse of time this bank would rise above the low water, when the wind would come into action, and as the sand dried after the tide had receded it would dribble over the top to the eastward and continue towards the apex of the v, and eventually perhaps filling it up, but I am afraid it would take a. very great number of years for this to be accomplished.—l am, etc., OLAYE DEACON. [We had the plan before us as we wrote, and cannot agree with our correspondent’s views regarding the action of the water if tte Mikotahi-Moturoa wall built, preferring to accept expert advice , on a matter that, after all, is of a somewhat technical nature. But, as we said yesterday, supposing that the advocates of the building of the wall are right, and Mr. Blair Mason and the other marine engineers associated with him are wrong, where is the advantage of making a new harbor when we are so advanced with rhe present one?. A great deal of dredging would be required, as the water is shallow for the most part,'‘and it would take many years to dig out berths, or build a breakwater outwards from Moturoa into deep water. We have it berth for overseas liners already; the resident engineer is planning to use the area already dredged for another wharf, almost parallel to the present one; the reclamation necessary can be done simultaneously with the extension of the breakwater. Then why pursue further what appears to us to be a phantastic scheme and one which has been roundly condemned by experts ?—Ed. ]