MANGAPU DRAINAGE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4171, 11 August 1939, Page 8

MANGAPU DRAINAGE

BRINGING IN REFRACTORY LAND. GOOD WORK ACCOMPLISHED. Mangapu Drainage Board, which operates over forty-two miles of the Mangapu Watershed which lies between Otorohanga and Te Kuiti and winds into the Waitomo district, has now been in operation for the past fifteen years, and has accomplished wonderful work during that period.

The Mangapu stream was formerly choked with willow growth from its outlet into the Waipa River at Otorohanga to its upper reaches in the Oparure hill country. The killing of the willows has been completed, &nd the Board is now removing from the stream-bed the accumulations of logs and debris in order to reduce the river level. The work so far done has been very beneficial to the adjacent fertile river flats. The programme of bottom haulage from the river-bed of the dead timber is done by tractor power, and apart from two stretches in the Waitomo area the river is now a first-class channel from its headwaters to its outlet.

In the Orahiri swamp, which adjoins the Otorohanga town boundary on the south, a large outlet drain has been opened through the centre of the extensive valley, with the result that the low-lying land has already been greatly benefited by the work of improvement. As is the case with any land drainage system, the clearing of the main waterways, ‘ as the benefits are felt from it, enables the carrying out of beneficial subsidiary work hitherto impossible. Apart from the benefit to private property, the work of the Board continues to be of marked benelt to the main highway, the Main Trunk railway, and the various land development schemes located in this extensive watershed.

.Many of the river flats that were formerly water-logged have recently come under the jurisdiction of the Native Lands Department, which will supervise their development into small mixed farms. The Board has constructed a number of outlet drains connecting with a main drain running parallel to the main highway, and running between it and the river.

The work already accomplished by this progressive organisation has resulted in a big increase in farm production, as the formerly water-logged

valley that ran only a few semi-wild | horses and pigs now carries through- | out its whole length the dairy herds i and sheep flocks of the settlers.