TAITA GORGE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 139, 15 June 1931, Page 10

TAITA GORGE

OPEN TO TRAFFIC

CAUTION NECESSARY

MAIN HIGHWAYS WORE

Happily the fears which wore ex« pressed on Saturday and Sunday that the week-end flood would seriously complicate the position, already bad enough, in the Taita Gorge were not fulfilled, for from what could be gathered to-day; the flood waters did not eat far into the road formation nor carry away th» partially completed protective works to any great extent. Late yesterday afternoon the water was well above average flood level, though below that of the Easter flood, and it was not possible to ascertain whether the surfaced roadway was sound to the edge or whether it had. been undermined. Mr. D. E. Hoggard, chairman of the Hutt County Council, visited the gorge during the afternoon and suggested that, to be on the safe side, the Eaihvay Department's busei running to Upper Hutt should not run past the threatened length, but that passengers should walk across to a second bus.- This course was followed later in the day, and is being continued, to-day. It is purely a precaution, for the roadway is considered to be safe for traffic, providing caution is exer- • cised. ' . The work of building out the bank, by means of boulder piles held in wire meshing, is being carried put by tho Main Highways Board, not by the Eiver Board. Legally the position is peculiar, as seemingly it is contended that tha Eiver Board cannot concern itself with, other than river work, that is, to say, the restoration of the roadway, .eatea into by the river, is not its business, while tho Hutt County Council, on thu other hand, is not legally competent to set to work beyond where the boundary of the roadway'was before the-East.er flood. The Main Highways Board has accordingly come in between and is undertaking the work, and will find 75 per cent, of the cost, the remaining 25 per cent, being found-by the Hutt County Council. LEGAL COMPLICATIONS^ There are other legal complications which stood in the way of the Hutt County, undertaking the work. The Elver Board has certain statutory powers as to what it may do and what it may not.for tho better control of the river, but if any other body undertakes such work, as by the building of groins, and so brings about an alteration in the flow of the river to the detriment of lands below, that body would face the probability of heavy claims for damage and compensation •without the safeguards against such claims to soma extent afforded to river boards by their special Act. That consideration apparently applied with particular force in the case of the Taita Gorge, for had groin work been decided upon and undertaken there could be no guarantee that tho river would not be thrown, over to private lands, and, if that had occurred there was no guarantee whatever that expensive claims would not follow. ~ HUTT RIVER CHANGING THIRD AND SHINGLE STAGE Speaking generally ' of the difficulties before the Hutt County Council and the Eiver Board, Mr. Hoggard remarked that during the last thirty oi- ;so years the river had changed altogether in character, but the cause of the gradual change went back a good deal further. Thirty years ago the Hutt "was a banked stream, without shingle complications, but the denudation of the hills of the catchment area, particularly of the Akatarawa, began. to be reflected in the stream, for debris from slips from the hillside had slowly found its way down the tributaries, creeks, ami small streams in flood-times and reached the main stream. . • ■ • ■Following- denudation, said Mr. Hoggard, there were three well-separated stages of river development. The first was the snag stage, when trunks and lags were carried down, and were trapped along.the stream and so caused trouble. Then followed a quiescent stage until the stumps rotted out and the steep hillsides were loosened and slips started, the loose rock eventually; getting down to tributary streams and so. to the main stream. AKATARAWA SLIPS. . In the case'of the Hutt Eiver therewas an additional factor which had greatly speeded •up the shingle stage, and that was the opening of the roadway through the Akatarawa, and rnora recently the widening of that road, for an enormous' amount of loose rock was hastened on its way to the Hutt Eiver.lix Mr.' Hoggard's opinion the Akatarawa is the most serious source of shingle supply. Tho position, he said, is that the Hutt Elver is filling its bed with shingle, and though tho Hutt Eiver, Board's policy of encouraging tho dredging of shingle and sand from the lower reaches had' certainly brought about an improvement of th; position, it was scarcely to be hoped that the removal of eighty or a hundred thousand cubic yards of meial a year was going to supply the remedy, when possibly ten times that volumo of metal was being brought down. During the last big flood period, at Easter, hundreds of slips of fair dimensions had come down in the Akatarawa, and there were literally thousands more, little and big, ready to start down hillside freshets into the tributary streams and eventually into the main stream. The sama position existed in nearly all New Zealand streams, added Mr. Hoggard, and another example near AVellington -was the Orongorongo, which, he had been told, was also a-regularly banked river, without shingle complications, until until thirty or forty years ago. BACK TO SECOND GROWTH.. Mr. Hoggard said thatthe only cure he could see was to allow the steep lands, particularly in the. Akatarawa, to reclothe themselves. He did not think planting would meet the need nearly as effectively as simply closing the land and letting it go back to second growth. Planting it would maka it necessary to disturb the surface, and every time a hole was dug there would be a litle more debris on the surface to be washed down. In any case exotics were unsafe from a fire risk point of view, and the process would bo much slower than to allow second growth to Rain ground and lead eventually to full reclothing. Of course, it would cost money to close the land up, but there the position was, as he saw it that the Hutt Elver, as a result of the denudation of tho steeper hillsides, had been changed in nature to a decidedly tricky stream carrying shingle in flood periods in volume sufficient to overcome methods of bed clearanco which were adequate until the third and shingle stage of the river's development became established.

As from to-day".the bus now leaving Gliuznce street for-Karori at ,5.10 p.m. will leave at 5.20 p.m. Messrs. Samson Bros., will sell piano* and household furniture at . Courtenaj; $lace tomorrow at §'Bani ~.. ■ — ■>