SPOIL FROM TUNNELS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 26 March 1926, Page 9

SPOIL FROM TUNNELS

JHE RECLAMATION'S CLAIMS

NOT MUCH AVAILABLE

.-• A great deal has been said of the interdependence of the Thorndon reclamation and the Tawa Flat tunnels, ,in the sense that,the reclamation cannot go ahead with anything like satisfactory speed until the spoil from the tunnel is available as filling, but, it was suggested to a "Post" reporter to-day, there is really very little in that argument. The total amount of spoil to be obtained in tunnelling would be 200,000 or perhaps 300,(JQ0 cubic yards, and •that amount would make remarkably little impression in the reclamation ;area. The Wellington Harbour Board, it was remarked, has already moved •something like 300,000 cubic yards of 'sand and silt from the mouth of the iHutt River, to behind the sea wall, and 'his made only a very small effect upon the reclamation. One corner has been filled in, and the silt runs out fcr a fair distance under tho surface of the water,, but -there is room for quite a few more 300,000 cubic yards before any real impression is made. In addition to. the inadequacy of the total amount of spoil to be obtained from -the tunnels to help;very much in the •reclamation, it had to be remembered ;that the Railway Department would 'require a considerable amount of spoil for embankments and earthworks, apart from the reclamation work, and it "would not bo surprising to find that when these ■\yorks had been completed there would not be very much Jeft for filling in' behind, the sea wall., ''Even if the tunnels were started to-day," "The Post's" informant continued, "it would, be a long time before they could bo completed; but, as far as the public know, the tunnels are _ot being undertaken just yet. Auckland has managed to have a very definite start made with her railway improvements; why not Wellington? The 'tunnels and the reclamation go together, and if one liangs fire so will the other; and, seeing that there must 'be a long wait even after the work is seriously commenced, why make that ,'wait the longer by further delaying ■^the commencement of tunnelling?" , Inquiries were .also made to-day in re- ; gard to a message from Wanganui to j the effect that the Railway Department ihad hired the Wanganui Harbour J Board's dredge Kaione to assist the j Wellington BEarbpur Board's dredge , Whakarire in ..pumping harbour bottom "sand arid "silt behind the sea wall. It ap- , pears that though 'negotiations have ■ taken place there.is no finality on the ! point as yet. ' .. '!