DREDGING OF ESTUARY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27307, 25 March 1954, Page 10

DREDGING OF ESTUARY

POWER SUPPLY FOR PLANT

ASSURANCE GIVEN BY M.E.D.

“The M.E.D. having given an assurance that power will be made available from a point of supply close to the projected place for beginning the dredging of the Estuary, instructions have been .given for expediting the construction of the dredge,” said Mr W. P. Glue, chairman of the works committee of the Christchurch Drainage Board yesterday. Plans for the dredge had been held up not only because the construction engineer had been working on plans for the new main pumping station and other engineers had to undergo military training, but because of advice that electrical supply could not be given before 1959, said Mr Glue. The assurance of the M.E.D. of au early supply altered the general picture. The board would early call for tenders for the construction of the dredge, which should be available in about six months, said Mr Glue. The dredge pontoons, now on the foreshore of the Estuary at New Brighton, and the plant on it had been bought from the Nokomai Gold Dredging Company four years ago, when it was available, and not because its immediate use was projected. The dredging in the Estuary, Mr Glue emphasised, was to provide lowwater channels to carry the flood waters of the Avon ana Heathcote rivers. It was not the board’s intention when it purchased’the dredge that the dredging of the Estuary other than to give better drainage of low-lying areas should be carried out.