A COMING DANGER TO HUTT SETTLERS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 523, 2 June 1909, Page 4

A COMING DANGER TO HUTT SETTLERS.

S'Tr-I am taking advantage of your widely-read paper to inform your readers and the inhabitants of the Hutt of a coming danger to tiioinsolves and loss' of property Aa every resident of the Valley knows, when tho river is in flood it ia liable to change its course. If you go to tho Upper Hutt you will.sco the water flushing away hundreds of tons of fertile soil and converting tho land into barren shingle. Tho Upper Hutt Board lately bought a-piece of land: once it was 8 acres, now about If acres—the rest all gashed away. And this is not a single instance. Just past the township acres of laud are continually being swept, away. • The Hutt {Til 7 1 V^V™^ 6 ■!? (or ' Mi y Partly so) i to the fact that it will soon- break into tho township, and have just-erected one groyne, about forty, feet, and two small ones, but before doing it they ought to have scooped out a nso in the shingle) so that the water would 1 force its way to theloft bank from here, and so enabe them to build tho groynes in shallow water ready for. a fresh to send the water slantmg-ways to the other side. They did not do so, and the consequence is the water has worked ite way round the'longest groyne and sweeps round it and strikes the bank belonging to a Mr. Berg, and is eating it away. Half an acre has.gone in a fortnight, and nwre w lu follow.' Then tho river will breakthrough to the right as you go up tho VaUey and wide-felt destructions will follow. Where fertile fields were is now barren waste, and great big willow trees which once marked the boundary of fields now stand a mournful memento of settlers' inactivity, surrounded by the river and a wide space of shingle. Will no one wake up? I say this', sir, the liovernment ought to have exixirienwi men to watch the river courses and,compel steps to bo taken so, as to enable thousands of pounds k> he" saved, and houses from being destroyed. When ; once swept away, tho land can never be recovored. There is yet time, bnt it wants to be done at once, and tnth onorgy, and so save from destruction one Df the finest valleys in the Dominion. Will this.be done ere it is too late? I could givo nnmorons instances of'the damage done, but 3o not wish to cause unnecessary jiarm.—l Mil, etc. • .-,- . ■■'■ .1 :M , - ■-'■■ EYE-WITNESS. .' May 29,