WATERFRONT RECLAMATION

Evening Star, Issue 22595, 12 March 1937, Page 8

WATERFRONT RECLAMATION

FIRST SECTION OF SOUTH ENDOWMENT WORK RESUMED AT MUSSEL BAY With the completion of the first paddock of 48 acres, the first stage in the long process of the reclamation of the Southern Endowment has been passed. The suction dredge Vulcan and the pipe line which were at the southern end of the Kitchener street wharf fop many months have been removed, the Vulcan being returned to the Port Chalmers tunnel for the pumping of spoil through to Mussel Bay. Only one corner of the 48-acre paddock on the Southern Endowment has not been filled up to the required leviel, and the work did not warrant the Vulcan plant being retained in the Upper Harbour while more pressing work was to be undertaken in the Lower Harbour.

The area so far filled in on the Southern Endowment has consolidated satisfactorily, but the long spell of wet weather has prevented the reclaimed ground solidifying as quickly as it would have done in a normal season. The proposal has been made on numerous occasions that the area should be set aside as an airport—the most centrallysituated port in the Dominion—but the possibility of its use for such a purpose must be very remote. Several years will elapse before the whole area is reclaimed, and the present board has shown no desire to bind future port authorities by & decision to vest the land to be created for civil or defence air purposes. • Likewise, no decision has been made yet by the board as to the future iise of the Mussel Bay area, into which the pumping of spoil dredged from the harbour was resumed on Wednesday night. The dredge Otakou is again working in the Lower Harbour and is _ depositing the spoil at the Vulcan site at the tunnel through'the hill to Mussel Bay, which was reclaimed' to a certain height wdien the removal of the bends in the channel towards Deborah Bay was carried out by the dredge. Since pumping ceased a big outfall sewer has been built and covered in near the railway boundary, and the big ditch on tho railway property is' now being filled in with dredged spoil. The area which the board is reclaiming at Mussel Bay is of 25 acres, and so far it has been filled to half the required height.