TAITA GORGE WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 143, 19 June 1931, Page 8

TAITA GORGE WORK

RIVER STILL HIGH

It is many years since so long a flood period has existed in the Hutt Kiver for tho flow has not dropped towards normal for some weeks now, whereas as a general thing the river may be expected to drop to normal level within a couple of days of the flood peak. Considerable difficulty is consequently being experienced by the Public Works Department in building out an artificial bank of bouldors held in heavy wire meshing to make good tho damage caused by the Easter floods. If the Department could only get in four good working days, a "Post" reporter was told yesterday, it could break the back of the job and proceed right ahead with the next and simpler stages of the work, the filling behind the boulder bank and re-formation of the eroded road surface. As far as could be seen, for most of the protective work was under .water, nothing had been carried away to any extent. Yesterday afternoon the river again began to rise, and to-day the water is running high and muddy, and the four' days of straight-ahead working are again postponed till after the week-end. Just what further damage last night's flooding may have done will not be apparent till the lovel falls. It has been suggested to "The Post" that the Department might make use of a big stack of reinforced concrete telegraph and power line poles which have been lying at Melling for a long time past, discarded as defective for the purpose for which they were manufactured. The suggestion was mentioned to the Department's officers, who said that early in the day they had inquired into the possibility of using the material, but had found that the long haul from Melling, to Taita, and other considerations, would make it unprofitable to use the poles.