A FUTURE PERIL

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 79, 3 April 1926, Page 6

A FUTURE PERIL

THE WAIMAKARIRI RIVER

ENGINEER SOUNDS THE ALARM.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Unless something is done, and that speedily, Christchurch will be in serious danger from the Waimakariri River within a definite and limited period. ■ This is the opinion of Mr. F. C. Hay, engineer to the River Trust. "The bed of the present stream is filling up," declared Mr. Hay, "and within about forty years it will give the river sufficient height to go over the bank and break through to the south branch, south of M'Lean's Island; and it will ; have Christchurch at its mercy." The possibility of the Waimakariri River leaving its present course and* flooding Christehurch has been feared since "the early days," ever since it was realised that the river is an example of that,class of stream which, by continual 1 deposition of gravel, builds up its bed to higher and higher level. The Waimakariri, which now flows into the sea a few miles north of Christchurch, formerly flowed much further south. "Several former channel* of the river-wastes of bare gravel with occasional sand-dunes, are traceable in the vicinity of Christchurch,"-states Professor. Cotton, in "Geomorphology of New Zealand." ''Apparently the Waimakariri discharged south Of Banks Peninsula at a not very distant period." . '