Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1941. FLOOD DAMAGE PROBLEMS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 July 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1941. FLOOD DAMAGE PROBLEMS.

SERIOUS as they stand, problems of Hood damage like those on which representatives of Wairarapa local bodies conferred last week with the Minister of Public Works (Mr Armstrong) are made much worse by the fact that they must be expected to recur periodically, and in some instances at least on an increasing scale. If only for the reason that burdened local bodies grappling with the task of making good extraordinary damage to roads, bridges and other works inevitably appeal to the Government for assistance, these problems evidently are or should be of national concern. On account of the call thus ‘made on the general taxpayer, it is in the interests even of those living in areas least exposed to flood damage that methodical and comprehensive efforts should be made to set what limits are possible to damage of this kind.

This being so. proposals which have been put forward by the Public Works Department with a view to checking flooddamage and erosion—proposals which are being investigated by a Parliamentary committee —appear to be entitled to more serious attention than they have been given in some quarters in this district and elsewhere in the Dominion. The proposals have been described as far-reaching and even as drastic. If they are too drastic no doubt they must be modified, but it is certainly worth while to consider whether, under a national policy, measures can be taken to limit the heavy damage caused from time to time by floods in various parts of the Dominion, and to lighten the costs this damage entails. The problem, of course, is one of economy, The question is whether by organised action —which in a matter of this kind can only be takeil on a national basis—if is possible to reduce the recurring costs incurred on account of erosion ami flood damage.

Tt is all the more necessary that this question should be taken up in a purposeful way since in a good many parts of this country the damage resulting from unchecked flood action plainly is beyond remedy. Even in the days when some eighty per cent of the land surface of New Zealand was covered with forest —much of if forest as magnificent as the world has known —a certain amount of flood damage occurred. Plain evidence is to be seen in some parts of the Dominion of heavy periodical flooding, and in places of heavy slips, which occurred long anterior to the days of white settlement. Following oh the reckless destruction of watershed and other protection forests, however, flood action has been increased and extended enormously and so, too, has been the process of more gradual erosion.

While there is great need of comprehensive and detailed investigation, the broad conclusion seems to be warranted I hat over a great part of this country well-devised protection schemes, providing' for the control of rivers, as far as is practicable, from their sources to the sea, will yield handsome dividends in safeguarding fertile and valuable lands. Some evidence is to be

found in the Wairarapa and in other parts of New Zealand that unless works of this nature are undertaken on an adequately comprehensive basis they ar’c much better left alone. Attempts to protect limited areas very often result in aggravating the total flood problem.

Tn some places it will undoubtedly be found that the problem of protecting farm lands and maintaining road and other work's in face of flood damage admits of no economic remedy—the cost of giving this protection, that is to say, will be out of proportion to the returns to be obtained from working these lands. Under a rational policy lands in this category must be abandoned in favour of others which may he occupied and worked with some reasonable prospect of profit.

The total problem is complex and difficult, but it is so much the more imperative that- it should be attacked in a methodical way. The starting point of any good policy of floodprotection must be a determination that action shall be taken at once to make an end of any needless extension of the problem by the further destruction of watershed forest and other forest now serving a vital purpose in limiting flood action. The scale on which the construction of protective works, reafforestation and other measures can be undertaken is a matter for discussion, but it is blind and stupid fatuity to allow the reckless destruction of protective forest to continue as it is continuing in many parts of the Dominion at present.