FLOOD PROTECTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3890, 2 October 1928, Page 10

FLOOD PROTECTION.

WORK ON THE TAIERI. TWENTY-SIX MILES OF LEVEES. The Taieri Plain is to be practically immune from floods as a result of protection work which the Public Works Department has almost completed. Briefly, the object of the scheme is to shut the Taieri and Waipori Rivers out of the main portion of the plain, and the banks, or levees, which have been built for the purpose, enclose an area of 19,000 acres of first-class land. The effects of some of the floods which have been experienced on the plain have been little short of disastrous, and the Taieri farmer' in times of heavy rain has never been easy in mind. As a result, however; of the construction of the works which have now reached such an advanced stage, the farmers within the protected area may carry out their yearly programmes, without the slightest fear of danger from flooding. From Outram, round the inner banks of the Taieri and Waipori Rivers, to the foothills at the back of the plain a levee has been built, the total length of the embankment being 26. miles. In some places it reaches a height of 25 feet, and during its construction nearly 500,000 cubic yards of spoil have been shifted. Work is now in progress on the internal drainage of the plain. All the surface water and seepage is to be gravitated by means of ditches to the lowest portion of the protected area and from there it is to be returned to the Taieri River by means of motor-driven pumps. The drainage -work is being done by me/ns of a drag-line excavator capable of removing 1000 cubic yards of earth a day.

■ln preparing plans for the scheme, the engineers allowed for the possibility of a huge flood. It is considered that the plain •will be perfectly safe even if the river should bring down 60,000 cubic feet of water a second, or, in other-words, a wall of Water 100 feet wide and 12 feet deep moving down fhe river as fast as a man can walk, would not penetrate the levees.