SAWDUST IN RIVER

Hokitika Guardian, 11 March 1938, Page 3

SAWDUST IN RIVER

MILLING COMPANIES FINED. WESTPORT, March 9Allegations that members of the def fending sawmilling company had approached officers of the Ruller Acelia matisation Society to have a chaise of a dumping sawdust in the Ruller river s where trout existed quashed, and that - threats had been made that failure to f do so would affect their business ini terests, were made by Mr M, B. Scully, fc counsel for the society, in the West*fj port Magistrate’s Court to-day. , The Nelson Creek Sawmilling Com-' .pany, . working a. stretch of timber in > the Ruller Gorge, was convicted and I. fiiigd, £lO with costs. ! | : Evidence was given by Ranger T. ' Smith, that on February 18 be had seen sawdust running from a race into ’ the river, and also a boy shovelling sawdust into the river. Ernest Becker, manager for the com- ; pany denied that sawdust was running . ■ into the river, but a letter written by 1 i him to the society admitted that a 1 | little sawdust might have overflowed ’ I from a race constructed to take it to the dump. Edward Norris appeared on ,a similar , charge in' respect to the Big Totara river, but proved that the mill had not been worked by him for some time, and the information was. dismisses.