MEEANEE DRAINS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 100, 8 April 1936, Page 7

MEEANEE DRAINS

Urgent Problem Faces the Ratepayers FLOOD PROTECTION A meeting of ratepayers resident in the Taipo, Saltwater, and Purimu creeks areas was held at Greenmeadows on Monday evening, and discussed with representatives who had attended the recent conference with the Hawke’s Bay County Council the possible means of providing protection against flooding. Mr. E. P. Smyrk, secretary of the Meeanee Progressive Association, in the unavoidable absence of the chairman and the deputy-chairman, presided over the meeting. Matters should not be allowed to rest, said Mr Smyrk in opening the discussion, and every effort should be made to have tho proposed works put in hand and completed before the winter sets in. Mr Flewellyn King, referring to the discussions in which he had joined as one of the delegates to the County Council conference, said that while there was an evident desire to provide some form of relief, it was also evident that there were many difficulties to be overcome. The chairman and engineer of the County Council, the delegates and representatives of the Taradale Town Board and of the Public Works Department, had gone over the whole of the area under discussion, including tho watershed at the back of Taradale, and had obtained much enlightenment on the causes and effects of flooding. The responsible authorities had been Jong in realising tho need of clearing tho waterways, which work had not Oven dona since tho earthquake.

CONSIDERABLE COST. Had the work of tar-sealing Avenue road to Church road, Greenmeadows, which was to cost £4OO, been stopped in the meantime at the Avondale road junction, he said, half the amount of the estimated expenditure would have been available for drainage. The decision of the conference to abolish the floodgates on the Ahuriri Flat, he added, had been quite unanimous, and had been made at the suggestion of the County Council chairman. Mr N. P. Eriksen, who represented the Meeanee riding at the conference, said that the cost of the proposals was considerable, and would be difficult to meet. It would be difficult to get the dry scoop to Saltwater Creek to complete tire deepening of tho county boundary. Tho whole cost of moving it would be £390. The tar-sealing of Avenue road bad been decided upon before the flood problem became acute, and was considered an economical scheme at the

time. The district was laced with an expenditure of about £4OO for remetalling the road, and the tar-sealing scheme seemed to offer so favourable an opportunity of getting rid of maintenance costs that he felt bound to support it. If tho flood problem had arisen earlier, his views, might have been different. RESOLUTIONS PASSED. In reference to the unfinished deepening of Saltwater Creek, Mr Eriksen said that tho section passed through private property, and the legal position was being investigated. Within tho last few days, he added, something in the nature of a compromise in the matter of removing the floodgates had been made by the county engineer and the Public Works Department. This statement occasioned considerable discussion, during which it was maintained that according to a previous unanimous decision the floodgates had to go, and that nobody had any right to effect a compromise without reference to the conference. Mr King and Mr Eriksen answered a number of questions, and the following resolutions were then carried unanimously :— Moved by Mr F. King, seconded by Mr Atkins, “That before any final decision is made in connection with the flood-gates, the conference of delegates be convened to consider the proposals.” Moved by Mr P. J. O’Brien, seconded by Mr C. F. Northe: “That the County Council be urged to continue its efforts in the direction of procuring the dry scoop for carrying out the deepening of Saltwater Creek, and also with respect to securing Government assistance in financing the cost of the drainage works required in the Meeanee and Greenmeadows areas.” Mr A. J. Robson, of Jervoistown, was appointed an additional delegato to the conference.