SEVERE LOSSES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19623, 5 May 1938, Page 6

SEVERE LOSSES

WILLOWS SETTLERS RAILWAY RAMI' CHAKCE RESTRICTING! OUTFLOW A claim thai the ramps built by the Public Work,: Department adjacent to the Waipaoa River bridge site are responsible for much of the damage caused to property by recurring tioods was made by Mr. P. W. Peddle in conversation with a pressman to-day.

Mr. Peddle stated that the recur ring floods, of which yesterday's wa the third in a few weeks, were mak ing a number of properties untenable and bringing the settlers face to fao with financial disaster.

The conditions which have contributed to repeated Hooding of ihe lowlying lands adjacent to the river could be remedied, Mr. Peddle considered by the application of common sense raid the expenditure of an amount not exceeding £4OOO. Of this rum. £IOOO could be spent in opening a channel for the river direct from the bridge site to the sea: and the balance could be to trestle the railway line over the low-lying lands.

Level of tiie Railway Line

At present, the level of the railway line across the lowest part, of the" land, where the water normally ilows in flood periods, is from ::0 inches to 24 inches above the level of ihe grass, the ramps leading io the railway bridge inpoundittg water and preventing its free egress to the lower portion of the river and so on to Ihe

The 20 inch depth of water held by the railway ramps. Mr. Peddle considers, is largely responsible for the spread of flood-waters over the Willows Settlement in what farmers maintain are only minor Hoods. "Imagination boggles at the possibilities of what, a major flood would do to the district, under the present handicap," he added. Silt in Waipaoa RivetHe further maintained that in the 1932 Hood, an enormous amount of silt and 'debris was deposited in the upper reaches of the Waipaoa River, raising the level of the stream-bed by 15 feet. That accumulation, he believed, was still in the Waipaoa bed. working its way downstream to the. flat lands of Poverty Bay. Arriving in the comparatively slow-moving water of the lower reaches, it. would be sufficient to fill the river from bank to bank, and cause Hooding which would destroy everything on the Poverty Bay Hats.

"The only cure for such conditions is to straighten the course of the river from near Ormond to the sea," declared Mr. Peddle. "This would shorten the distance by approximately nine miles, and would give a direct fall of 19ft. Such a fall would create a velocity in the river which would remove any possible accumulation ol shingle, silt, and other debris."