FIGHTING THE LEITI

Evening Star, Issue 20252, 13 August 1929, Page 8

FIGHTING THE LEITI

CHOKED WITH EVERY FRESH :CORPORATION'S IHTERHIHABLE JOB To get anything like an idea as -to tho nature and tho magnitude of the work undertaken by tho Dunedin Corporation in Endeavouring to clear the bed of tho Leith' in its Woodhaugb reaches one must make a personal inspection. No spoken description can suffice. M. Stevenson, Ltd., Ims the contract to restore the channel of the stream as far as possible on the stretch from the Woodhaugb bridge to the bend where Davidson’s sawmill once stood. On this job, which is of such a peculiar character that it could not bo measured up beforehand, consequently impossible to tender for in a. lump sum there are now employed forty-live tip drays, twenty men working in or by the water, and two Bearcat machines for grabbing tho boulders out of the water, and Mr 11. Ramsay is helping With, four drays.

Tho charge to the corporation is at so much per day. The work has been going on since March, ami amazing results are seen in the enormous mounds of stone piled up here and there; yet in places the bed of the stream is as choked as before the operations commenced, for every prolonged shower brings down the obstructing material, consisting of nine parts stone and one part silt, and one day’s rain is enough to annul the labour of a. week or more in overlaying with boulders the roads in the bed that have to by cleared as a preliminary to getting In the edge of tho current. Three times lias this stretch been gone over and made tolerably clear, and now tho men are going over it lor the fourth’lime: Immediately above the Woodliangh bridge a bar is constantly forming, threatening the safety of the stone wall on the southern bank. At one point tin’s wall was recently undermined, and Ibe repairing became an urgent necessity. Just now the stream has a clear run at this spot, but the men have only partly cut away the silt bank about 4ft deep. A the bend a little higher, dose to but bclov.j the paper mills, _the scene is a. mazing and ad most alarming. _ Continuously there has been a lifting oi the debris to the extent of 700 or 800 yards per day. and the deposit of clean bluestonc on tho bank seems to be about 20ft high, and perhaps a chain and a-half across. The monster heap is still growing, for this is the central dump, from which .some tlay, or other _ the .stone will be crushed. The mound is at present as high as the roofs oi the nearby residences. A complete clearance has boon made under the bridge at the paper mills. Immediately above and as far up as the limit of the contract now in hand the Leith was to-day amiably pursuing its course through a channel that looks as though it had never been cleared though as a fact it has been gone over three’ times. 'Dio reinforced concrete wall, about fSin thick", is broken away for perhaps four chains, the debris enlamdcd with the boulders in the bed. .One’ of the Bearcats is operating on a ofi, ba-c composed oi material deposited Unco a clearance was cheered a, month or so ago. An ugly-looking hank has newly formed just above the bridge near Davidson's, looking as ii it -may come down and iuakc a_ block at the bridge with the next rahn Tho possibilities arc certainly serious. The Leith, evident!,)' has immeasurable quantities of stone to bring down. Already there are hemps of it everywhere. about on the banks and in paddocks and before long unless some new sell;me ol deposit can bo dc\ iscn, it will be a trouble to find places to stow all the stone.