RE THE INNER HARBOUR.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 29, 17 January 1912, Page 4

RE THE INNER HARBOUR.

TO THE EDITOR, Sii-,—Circumstances very often alter cases, and I think that the proposed Napier-Gisborne railway may very easily tend towards solving the Inner Harbour problem. If the Government will agree to put an embankment instead of a bridge to carry the line across the harbour at Port Ahuriri (the harbour authorities paying the extra cost of construction) tho embankment would effectually stop all silt iTom the river getting into the harbour. A new mouth for the Tutaekuri would need opening through the Spit, somewhere near Petane, and if a small channel were opened at the time the embankment was commenced, the water would have eaten the channel to a proper size by the time the old course of the river was closed. Boundary walls of timber or concrete could be bulit at. proper distances apart to limit the width of the new mouth of the river, these and . the bridges over same could be constructed while yet dry, ami need not be any longer than the width between the rnoles at Port Ahuriri.It appears to me that this would do away with the worst part of the silt? difficulty, and make tho Inner Harbour practicable, and at. the same time greatly improve the big lagoon which, extends from the b ridge to the hills on its western shore, and probably result in the reclamation of hundreds of acres of tho present shallow and almost useless properties.—l am, etc., OSWALD COATES. Napier, Jan. 16th, 1912. | The trapping of the silt is provided for in Air. George Nelson’s scheme. Our correspondent evidently has overlooked the fact that the river current and tidal flow into and cut of the lagoon must always be necessary- to scour out the Inner Harbour channel.—Ed. H.B.T. J