LAKE ELLESMERE OUTLET

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25547, 15 July 1948, Page 5

LAKE ELLESMERE OUTLET

CUT BEING MADE Engineers and other employees of the North Canterbury Catchment Board yesterday began preparations to cut an outlet for Lake Ellesmere to the sea. The lake was 3.8 feet above sea level yesterday. A message received in Christchurch last evening from Mr H. W. Harris, chief engineer to the board, who is personally directing the work, said it bad been hoped to complete the cut by 2 o’clock this morning, but the southerly conditions which had developed were making the work more difficult than anticipated earlier.

The present is the fourth occasion on which the Catchment Board .has* undertaken the opening of the lake. The work was last done in February, and the cut remained open for a month.

Yesterday, three big bulldozers were used to. clear shingle and other spoil from the site of the cut. on the shingle bank just across the arm of the lake from Taumutu. The cut will be 7J chains long. At its highest point, the shingle bank is 14 feet above water level. Between 7000 and 8000 cubic yards of shingle will have to be moved. Upwards of 100 cubic yards of shingle can be shifted in an hour by each of the Catchment Board’s bulldozers. Mr Harris said yesterday morning that a southerly change would make the task of finally opening the mouth of the cut a risky operation. The waves would build up the shingle as fast as it could be removed by the board’s machinery.