OTAGO HARBOR

Evening Star, Issue 14508, 28 October 1910, Page 2

OTAGO HARBOR

THE HOPPER DREDGES SCHEME,

Mr Boss's motion that the Works Com-mit-too take into consideration the procuring (if two steel hopper barges having been .moved at the meeting of the Harbor Board yesterday,

Mr Gcdfred seconded it pro forma, so sis to get an opportunity of expressing his opinion on the management of the harbor. From his point of view the Board had already been overdoing the expenditure on that'portion of the harbor between Burkw and Dunedin. He wished also to tell the Board that the dredging continually going on in the Upper Harbor was having the effect of spoiling the Ixwer Harbor. The little dredge dropped a lot of stuff, which was tsilting up about Quarantine Island, and tho destruction of the marine growths at tlie bottom had been a deteriorating agency. If a greater expenditure was asked for in the upper part of the channel there would be a heavy resiwiisibility econer or later fer having "delikd this beautiful harbor. Mr Belcher said that ho had no objection to the question going to Iho Works Committee, hut ho would point out that in every part of the world where reclamation was possible hopper dredges had been abandoned and abolished. Ho recognised that the dredging plant was not ouuicicnt, but instead of .-pending money on hoppers they should alter the present dredge—put a pumping plan: into her, I*o that srne could lift her spoil, take it t" the plac*- of reclamation, and [nit it down there. These hopper barges would cost £20.000. and the upkeep thereafter would he £3.000 a year (he contended), and he hold that it would be better to get another machine as effective as 222 and go on with the reclamation. As" for the channel, he was of opinion that it was progressing hi proportion to the population and the interests of the district to be served. A million had been spent on it already. He was finite, at one with the Pert representatives that eomothiug should be done to improve tho Lower Harbor. H * believed that if they had tho proper- appliances there were places which might bo reclaimed at Port Chalmers, aud which would be very valuable. Mr Bullock said that he would like to see Mr Boss associated with the. Works Committee in tin's matter, so that his knowledge of the question might bo available, lie (Mr Bullock) would not now discuss the incrito of the proposal. That could he done at tho Committee, meeting. As to what Mr (lodfrod had said about Pint Chalmers, nobody could say that the Board as now constituted neglected the Lower Harbor a.s it used to be. The Board as a whole had at h;art the interests of the harbor us a whole, and vessels now found the Lower Harbor better than it was three or four years, ago. Mr Bos.s iaid lie woidd esteem it an honor to be added to the Work.; foannilu-e for this purpose. The motk'ji wais carried.