HARBOUR WORKS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume X, Issue 79, 16 March 1920, Page 4

HARBOUR WORKS.

Our Napier morning contemporary, after professing to be anxious to make the “amende honorable ’ with regard to previous misstatements mid misrepresentations on the question of the Inner Harbour, at oner proceeds to fresh statements that, if not quite as misleading, are certainly calculated to befog and becloud the issues that are io be considered by the ratepayers. In the first place, it has to be understood that the Board's present purpose is, by gradual stages, dictated from time to time by the existing and assuredly early prospective needs of the port, to work up to the fulfilment of the first part of Messrs. Cullen and Keele's scheme of Inner Harbour construction, extension, and improvement. It was long since finally decided to discard all otucr prosposa.ls, and to adhere to the policy of harbour const ruction as recommended by these two eminent Australian marine engineers. In considering the Board’s present quite moderate proposals there is thus nothing to be gained by cuing authorities whose proposals have not met with acceptance, evtrn it in some broad respects they' may coincide with those of Messrs. Cullen and Keele. It is therefore necessary only to have regard to the present,ly contemplatcd works insofar as they agree with or depart from the scheme formulated by Messrs. Cullen and Keele. The main features oi that scheme to which full practical application is at: present not to t>« given are, firstly, the widening of the entrance channel between the moles by 100 feet ; secondly, the extension of the moles themselves for 400 feet seaward ; and, thirdly, the construction of a training wall, running from the outer end of the embankment. With regard to th, widening of the entrance it was designed to effect two purposes, the prolusion of greater room for navigation and the, slackening of the tidal current. The Board is well

advised that, when dredged as is now proposed, the existing channel will provide an etirely safe and practicable entrance from the point of navigation, the only condition being that the bigger ocean-going vessels mav have to accommodate themselves to the state of the tioe, n condition which can he ury easily considered. As has before been pointed out, Messrs. Cullen and Keele's report, while speaking of the extension of the moles as Ecmg “very advantageous,” does not show it to be essential. More especially is this the case with regard to two of the three objects for which it was designed, viz., to preclude shoaling at the ends and to aid the sluicing action of the ebb tide. _Both tk-re purposes will, we should imagine, be largely effected by the maintenance of the narrower entrance channel with, its more rapid current. With regard io the long training-wall for which Messrs. C'n.Hen and Keele make provision, it is intended to serve two objects, to direct the ebbing shallower waters so as to assist most effectually in the sluicing of the channel, and to carry away the- silt. While the entrance channel is maintained at its present width the first of these purposes is not of nearly so great moment as it would be were the channel widened; while as to the second, which in the complete scheme had special regard to a basin very much larger than at present contemplated, there is no fear entertained that silt will in any way seriously affect the smaller basin. The ratepayers whose consent is asked to the floating of the present loan cannot be too fully impressed with the fact that the section of the Inner Harbour which t> is now intended to construct wit constitute a complete workable unit in the currying out of the larger scheme. It is not a mere Jure, as opponents would apparently suggest, to enter upon an indefinite expenditure on works that may possibly not be needed for several years to come.