THE H.B. TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. 1928 FLOOD PREVENTION

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 225, 5 September 1928, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. 1928 FLOOD PREVENTION

TF as the old Hebrew proverb says, “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety,” then long ere this the occupants of the Heretaunga Plain should have been safe from river-flooding. Counsels without number have been given as to how this consummation so devoutly to be wished was to be attained, some of them sought and paid for, and probably quite as many volunteered gratuitously. According to what was said at yesterday’s meeting, the present Rivers Board has before it advice tendered by no less than nine professional men, all of them no doubt pretty heavily feed. Besides these there are others who from time to time, running back over scores of years, have also given their advice. So that it will be seen that it will not be for want of counsellors, expert and otherwise, if security is not eventually achieved. But the main result so far has been to create in the people’s minds such a confusion of ideas that many who would wish to take an intelligent and active interest in a matter of really widespread public Concern have given it up in despair of anything like finality being reached. 'I here would seem, however, from the report of yesterday’s pro reedings at a meeting of the Rivers Board to be hope that at length something definite and effective will be done with regard to at least one of the rivers that have in the past proved a source of continual and imminent danger and of frequent actual and serious damage.

Apart from diversities of advice, the main source of difficulty has lain in the fact that most of the really comprehensive schemes submitted have, involved a capital expenditure that, for the time being at any rate, did not appear to be justified by the value of the benefits to be gained. Thus we have

had on both rivers many long years of patchwork designed to meet the most threatening conditions of the time. No doubt, in this way a considerable amount of good work has been done that has averted serious damage which might otherwise have been sustained. But, on the other hand, a good deal of time and money has been misspent on wholly ineffective or only temporarily effective works. It is therefore gratifying to note that, if one of the resolutions passed yesterday meets with the approval of the Public Works Department, the long contemplated diversion of the Tutaekuri river may have a fair chance of being put in hand at an early date. With respect to the Ngaruroro, the present decision points to only minor ameliorating measures being pro ceeded with, which, however, will work in with some complete scheme to be carried out in an indefinite future.

Even with regard to the works that, subject to departmental approval, have now been resolved upon there is in the background a possible difficulty as to finance. The expenditure to be involved is of such amount that it can be met only by the raising of a substantial loan. That loan can be raised only with the approval of a majority of the ratepayers of the River Board district upon a poll taken. Then, the payment of interest and sinking fund on such loan can be secured only by the imposition upon land-owners of an adequate rate. If the rate is spread uniformly over the whole district, then the raising of the loan is likely to be opposed by those ratepayers—probably a big majority—who cannot see that they are likely to derive any direct compensating benefit from the works upon which it is to be spent. This is a practical difficulty which the Board recognises. It may perhaps be hoped that the main body of ratepayers would submit to some levy on account of expenditure that must indirectly benefit the whole district. But the suggestion now made is that some plan of sectional rating should be adopted casting the chief burden of repayment upon those more directly benefiting from the expenditure. This seems to be a reasonable proposal and, indeed, the only feasible one offering for overcoming an otherwise apparently insurmountable difficulty. It is therefore to be hoped that it may commend itself to the ratepayers chiefly concerned.