CATCHMENT BOARD MEETS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29017, 5 October 1959, Page 13

CATCHMENT BOARD MEETS

Reopening Of Old Watercourses

The question of reopening an old watercourse, the level of which has been built up by cultivation in normal farming operations, is to be referred by the North Canterbury Catchment Board to the Catchment Boards’ Association for a legal opinion on the board’s powers. Mr A. T. Bell, chairman of the rivers control committee, said that in the case before the board the flow of water had been blocked because the level of an old watercourse in a paddock had been raised by cultivation. There were many of these cases throughout Canterbury, and the question was: whether the board had the power to ask owners of land to reopen these old watercourses. It was a matter of importance to catchment boards throughout the country. Noxious Weeds The board also decided to notify the noxious weeds inspector that, in view of the doubt about the board’s responsibility in respect of land adjoining the actual bed of a river, the matter was being referred to the Catchment Boards’ Association for a legal opinion. Yacht Club to Move The Stewart's Gully Sailing Club is to be advised that, as it will be necessary to do protective work on that frontage at Stewart’s Gully, the club should make arrangements to vacate the area immediately. “Guinea Pig” Catchment “That, being firmly convinced that river control schemes should include soil conservation works and practices, the chief engineer, the chief soil conservation officer, and the classifier be requested to select a small problem catchment. outline broadly the engineering and soil conservation works and practices they would recommend and the principles that would have to be taken into account in classifying the catchment and report to the November meeting.” That clause in the report, of the soil conservation committee was adopted. Mr J. M. Pickering, chairman of the committee, said the board had been in existence for several years and still had not got a single catchment it could point to and say: “There’s catchment control.” The committee felt it was high time something more practical was done. Mr T. W. Preston said the aim was to regard the selected catchment as a guinea pig, to see where the benefit from such work lay and who was to pay for it. Those who benefited should pay. Mr C. Morgan Williams said erosion was an old and universal problem. The board should do some demonstration work on what was possible in river control and soil conservation. Tender Accepted The board accepted the tender of Jeal and Skurr, Ltd., of £2219 for building a new groyne on the north bank of the Waimakariri river above Downs road.