The Daily News. THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1921. HARBOR EXTENSION.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 August 1921, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1921. HARBOR EXTENSION.

Our local contemporary is championing the movement, initiated a little While ago, to jettison Mr. Blair Mason’s harbor extension scheme, and construct a wall between Mikotahi and Moturoa, preliminary to making an “outer harbor.” In its issue of Tuesday it raises some points that merit examination. We have maintained that no good’ cause has yet been shown why any departure from the principles of the original scheme should be made, that the Harbor Board is committed to carrying them out, having gone to the ratepayers for sanction of the £300,000 loan for that specific purpose, and that any agitation to divert from the scheme at this juncture is entirely mischievous, being calculated to unsettle the minds of the public and hamper the board in carrying out its work. The Herald, however, would have the public believe that the board is quite free to depart from the principles of the scheme, and advances arguments to show that the building of the MikotahiMoturba wall, if only a half-tide one, would “in a comparatively short time have a great and beneficial effect on the harbor.” The real reason for the construction of this wall, however, is not so much the protection of the present breakwater, but later on “to make it possible to construct an outer harbor when the building of a breakwater eastwards from Moturoa is warranted.” The real reason for the wall is thus disclosed, and we would invite readers to mark this point well. Happily for the district the Harbor Board is not likely .to entertain any such wild-cat scheme, but that it is being seriously put forward is a reason why the public should be on their guard. Our contemporary says:—

It has been said that it is mischievous to suggest any departure -from the scheme adopted by the Harbor Board. The same was said, however, nine years ago when we criticised the proposal to dredge inshore. The dredging was carried out at very heavy cost and then the board adopted Mr. Blair Mason's plans, which provide for filling up again some of the area thus dredged.

The Herald’s judgment was at fault then, as it is now. It supported the extension of the present wharf, a proposal described at the time as “a dog’s hind leg” wharf, for it looked on the plan for all the world like one, whilst the majority on the board preferred to keep in shore as closely as possible and dig out a deep water berth, and this has been done. Had the suggestion which elicited our contemporary’s warm support been carried out, we make bold to say that we would never have had an overseas vessel berthed at New Plymouth yet, for the simple reason that the berth would have been too exposed, and

affected by the serge of the seas in a far greater degree than the present one. Protection for the present berth is as yet by no means ideal, or what shipping owners desire, but to go out further would have been suicidal. In a gale like last Thursday’s and Friday’s a ship could never./have been held had the berth been where it was originally planned. The nearer the land the safer the berth, and though the dredging has presented tremendous difficulties and has -cost a lot of money the fact remains that we have a safe deep-sea berth, not perfect yet, of course, but one that will be improved with the extension of the breakwater and the carrying out of other parts of Mr. Blair Mason’s scheme. It is true that the original plans provided for filling up again some of the dredged area, but this course has never been followed, the board’s policy having been to fully utilise all the dredged area. The resident engineer’s scheme flor the provision of an extra deep berth parallel with the present one utilises all the dredging, the foot of the wharf only being filled in, that is to say, the shallow part. Whether these proposals are practicable can only be ascertained when the full details asked for by the board a month ago are available. Again, the Herald says the connecting of Mikotahi and Moturoa is a much less formidable undertaking than the construction of the Moturoa-break-water wall, adding that had the latter been started from the breakwater en-d before last week’s storm “if would have formed a V into which the seas would have rushed, probablj' causing very great damage to the breakwater, besides carrying large quantities of stone into the sheltered area.” To anyone, who watched the seas during the storm it seemed perfectly obvious that it would have taken an enormously strong wall to resist the pounding of the terrific seas racing between the two sugar-loaves, and that a wall running parallel with the seas, as the Moturoabreakwater wall would, would not have been materially affected. But the point advocates of the “outer harbor” scheme overlook is that the wall from the breakwater to Moturoa will trap the sand, that the sand will build up on the seaward side of the present breakwater, and that the seas will dissipate their force on the sand before striking the breakwater itself. During the making of the sand the seas would do no more damage to the breakwater than they did, for instance, during last week’s storm, but as heavy as has ever been experienced. We know that the wall, without further sand accumulation, will withstand the worst possible seas; we do not know whether even the strongest wall between Mikotahi and Moturoa would stand against the seas that are forced through and confined between the two islands in a storm like last week’s: we have a berth where a big vessel like the Waitomo, lightly laden, can lie in safety in the worst of weathers; we can within the limits of the present loan provide another deep sea berth near by as well as extend the breakwater. Then why throw away the substance for what is the merest shadow ? This is what oui - contemporary'—with the best of intentions’, of course—-would have the board do. Happily, as we have said, there is no danger of the board listening to the proposal, which is about as impracticable and fatuous as the “dog’s hind leg” deep sea berth that could never have sheltered a small coastal boat in rough weather let alone an ocean liner.