FLOOD PROTECTION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 111, 11 April 1936, Page 11

FLOOD PROTECTION

AT COLEY’S BEND. FINANCING OF WORK. . Progress made in connection with the permanent protection works contemplated at Coley’s bend, on the Manawatu River, was the subject of several reports placed before the meeting of the Makerua Drainage Board Thursday afternoon, when the negotiations entered into concerning land and finance were outlined. Application had been made, reported the clerk (Mr N. I. Nielsen) to the Local Government Loan's Board for aproval for a loan of £SOOO for the purpose of restoring protection banks and culverts which were damaged by Hood. This was based on an estimated expenditure of £10,860, made up as follows : —Erection of new stop-bank (40 chains) at the rear of the present bank at Coley’s bend. £1500; erection of temporary, stop-bank round the dangerously undermined section to afford protection while the permanent bank is being built, £400; repairing breach in stop-bank at end of Seifert’s drain outlet to Manawatu River (near Coley’s bend breach), and construction of new ' floodgate, £360; widening and deepening of, Taupunga cut (outside board’s district), and construction of boom groynes to assist in deflecting flood waters into the cut, £5650; compensation for necessary land severed by construction of bank at Coley’s bend (60 acres), £2400; reconstruction of Mukapai floodgate (which collapsed during flood), and construction of necessary stop-bank, £SOO. The Minister of Public Works, it was stated, had promised a subsidy of £3 for £l. Information was received from the Treasury that the necessary investigations would be instituted and the application submitted to the first available meeting of the Loans Board. It was pointed out that under the Land Drainage Act the total aggregate amount of all loans to be raised must not exceed one-fourth of the value of the fee simple of all the land in the district as appearing in the current valuation roll. It would appear that the loan debt of the board must be approaching this limit. The Valuer-General submitted an estimate of £813,185 as the present total capital value of the board’s district.

The county clerk stated that onequarter of this was about £203,000, while the board’s present loan indebtedness was £161,869, leaving quite an ample margin. The Public Works Department wrote stating that the Taupanga cut work would be undertaken with the use of a drag-line, but although machines had been ordered from England, five or six months would probably elapse before this work could be commenced. This, however, would not interfere with the present prosecution of the banking work. Advice was received that the Man a-watu-Oroua River Board would offer no objection to the carrying out of this work. OFFER OF LAND. A letter was received from Mr D. A. Coley’s solicitors stating that _ he would be prepared to sell the required sixty acres of land at £4O an acre, as if the area was taken it would so reduce his farm that it could not be profitably worked. In the event of the larger bank being built without acquiring any land or only sufficient on which to construct the bank, he would still base his claim on the whole area from the bank to the river boundary, because.if the board intended to lower or cut away the existing bank at or near both ends of the new bank the land outside the latter would sooner or later be turned into a sn amp or river-bed and be valueless for dairying! . . Mr Coley, as an alternative offer, advised that he would permit the construction of the large bank across his property on the line suggested in consideration of the board releasing him from payment of rates on the balance of his land for all time. He owned about 180 acres, on which the rates were £ll3 per annum. The board was advised that it could not legally enter into such a contract as was suggested even if it wished to Comment was made that the board, failing satisfactory negotiations with the owner', could take the land under the Public Works Act, but it was not ready to proceed yet. _ The chairman (Air H. Seifert) reported that notice had been served oil Mr Coley of the board’s intention to erect a bank through his land to saleguard the drainage system.