WEST TAIERI DRAINAGE BOARD.

Evening Star, Issue 14965, 27 August 1912, Page 4

WEST TAIERI DRAINAGE BOARD.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir.—After your footnote to my previous'" letter, that you have a " better knowledge of the local conditions at the Taieri than I give y°' l credit for, ' I have been waiting patiently to learn- the extent of vonr know!?d'.'e. and after reading your leaderette of the- 22nd inst. I am now perfectly satisfied that'your knowledge of the district is a minus quantity, otherwise you would not have made the palpable ■errors contained in your leaderette. The statement that the'contour channel is projected to cut off the hill water from the upper plain shows at once the absolute ignorance of the writer. If the various reports^submitted bv the engineers since the Taieri Drainage" Board was constituted in 1903 had been carefully reuA. ho would have noticed that the channel is to prevent the water from the hills and the drainage from the upper plain draining on to tne lowland and swamping it. You hare put it exactly upside down. You go un to eay that " the most striking feature of t-ho present- position of the board is that it does not appear to have occurred to any of the members thai the board wre incurring a heavy responsibility in bringing to the Waipori Lake a second river m flood without making the slightest provision for getting rid ci the water. It was after ail, a temple sum in arithmetic. If the Waipori River, when in flood, does so much mischief, what damage will the Waipori River, plus the. contour channel, do under like conditions?' Are you not aware that the water this very "came second flooded river I the contour channel) will discharge into Lake Waipori is discharged into the lake at. this very moment, and has so been discharged "for many years, bv means of the Lee. Creek? The only dijJerence is that Wylie's Creek will be. turned _ into the channel (instead of winding down the plain as at present), and that the contour channel -will discharge, the water into the lake a few chains' distance- from the point where the Lee Creek discharges it. This disposes of your "second river" and "the sum in arithmetic." The above works will prevent thousands of acres ot' first-class land from being periodically flooded, not by flood waters from the Taieri River, but by internal flooding after heavy rain. If the works prevent this flooding (and I have no doubt they will do so), then the expenditure will be amply justified.

I quite agree with you that- a serious menace to the. plain is the silting of the Taieri River, but you should also have added the Waipori 'River. The _ members of the board are- fully alive to their responsibilities, as is evidenced by the faot3 that in our local Bill we are "asking for the powers of a river board, and also to th<3 mention made to the matter in the various monthly reports submitted by the la to engineer to tho board. The powers of y. drainage board are separate and distinct from the powers of a river board, and until we have these additional powers given to us the board can do nothing in the matter, the reply of the Minister of Marine, in answer to a question put by the member for the district in the House on the 21st inst. notwithstanding. With regard to the letter of " One Interested" in your issue of the 22nd inst., he questions the correctness of my statement that the local Bill was publicly notified this year. Your correspondent is .a

little bit * mined" in W» letter; hub !£ lie will take the trouble to examine the official records In the Maaietratc's Court at Outram he will find that my statemeat is absolutely correct.—l am, etc., James T. Gibson, Chairman West Taieri Drainage Board. August 26. [Mr Gibson's letter is The- writer denies that the contour channel is projected to cut off the water from the upper plain, and yet admit* that Wylies Creak will bo "turned into the channel, "instead of winding down the plain as at present." As for the contour channel, the chairman, of the West Taieri Drainage Board does not recognise the difference, between a concentrated flood in a banked channel, with a carefully graded fall, and the flooding of the area ir question under present conditions Th« chairman begs the real question raised by "One Interested," which was that the Bill now before Parliament presents very material alterations from the Bill of 1910, as our correspondent rmdo abundantly clear, and as the entail property-holders in the Taieri will know to their cost if tho former Bill is allowed to paes.—Ed E.S.]