RIVERS CONTROL AT KAIKOURA

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26886, 12 November 1952, Page 3

RIVERS CONTROL AT KAIKOURA

LEGISLATION FOR ISOLATED AREAS FEDERATED FARMERS’ DISCUSSION The Government will be requested to amend the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act to enable county councils to assume the full powers and duties of a catchment board in an area which requires heavy expenditure on soil conservation and rivers control and which is not large enough to support a catchment board, nor able to be conveniently included in an existing board area. This was decided at a meeting of the executive committee of the Kaikoura branch of Federated Farmers. The chairman (Mr J. G. Humm) said that Kaikoura was an isolated area with rivers control problems, and it was separated by big gaps from existing catchment board areas. The only solution was that county councils should be given all the powers of a catchment board, Mr Humm said. The member of Parliament for the district (Mr T. P. Shand) said that in 1873 a petition had been presented to Parliament to have the shingle fans of the Waimanarara river shut off. Provision was to be made for the conservation of timber and the cessation of grazing. That had not been done, said Mr Shand. The result was that several farms in the area were doomed. They would probably be able to carry on for some time but erosion would probably start further down the watershed. Mr Humm in moving that a remit be forwarded through the Marlborough provincial executive, said that isolated areas were not covered by the act and he considerd that with the same subsidies as for catchment boards the council would be able to get the plant to do river work. It was imperative that the council should get control of the rivers in the Kaikoura district, he said. The remit was carried.