LAKE OUTLET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1938, Page 7

LAKE OUTLET

ATTEMPT TO OPEN FAILS. EXPERIMENT WITH DRAG-LINE. An experimental attempt made yesterday to open the outlet of the Onoke Lake by a new method did not meet with success. A winch driven from a tractor, was set up on the top of the cliffs behind the Lake Ferry Hotel with a view to operating a scoop on a drag-line. About a thousand feet of wire rope was run out, but the strain proved to be too great and the rope broke. It is understood that no further attempt will be made by this method and a return will be made to the old-established and more primitive method of horse-drawn scoops and manoperated shovels. The present intention is to open the outlet near the Lake Ferry Hotel. It is claimed by Mr M. Bouzaid, of Greytown, who has had 25 years’ experience of the locality, that an outlet in this portion of the Spit never remains open longer than two.months, whereas the shortest period for which the outlet remains open.whtm it is near or alongside the second cliffs is six months. Mr Bouzaid states that when he and three other fishermen opened the outlet in the latter locality on Augusj; 20, 1934, it remained open for eighteen months. In the past fifteen months, during which period the opening has been near the Lake Ferry Hotel, the outlet has closed eight times. He maintains that by the construction of a wall of no great length, to prevent sand from falling into the channel, the Lake outlet could be kept permanently open if the opening were made near the second cliffs. Under these conditions, he states, Onoke Lake would be much safer for boating, bathing and swimming.