GREYMOUTH HARBOUR

Southland Times, Issue 21000, 5 February 1930, Page 6

GREYMOUTH HARBOUR

IMPROVING THE PORT. (Per United Press Association.) Greymouth, February 4. At the Harbour Board meeting to-night, the chairman (Mr Joseph McLean) submitted an outline and plan prepared by Mr Gordon Nicol, M.1.C.E., M.1.M.E., Aberdeen, harbour engineer and consulting engineer to the Scottish Nishenby Board, for a scheme to improve the harbour. It provides for the construction of two long curved breakwaters extending from the foreshore, one on each side of the existing harbour entrance. These would leave an entrance about 800 feet wide at low water and enclose an additional water area outside the present piers, thus forming a stilling basin. The depth in the entrance channel then could be maintained by dredging the depth of water in which the breakwaters would be constructed and would prevent silting at the entrance from the action of the sea. The breakwaters would be between 3000 and 4000 feet long. The existence of a vast supply of material for the construction in close proximity to the port is noted by Mr Nicol, from whom Mr McLean obtained the scheme on his own initiative during a recent visit to Scotland. The report, adds , that the requirements of navigation here necessitate the entrance being in deep water, also facing the direction of the worst seas, and that the present walls, if continued, would require to be narrowed .too much for safety. The board decided to-night to obtain a report by the. Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department, and by its' own engineer on Mr Nicol’s proposals and to heartily thank the chairman for securing same.