OTIPUA LAGOON.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVI, Issue 14922, 14 December 1912, Page 8

OTIPUA LAGOON.

One of tire first tasks of the new engineer whom the Timaru Borough Co\mr;il will probably appoint next week will be to prepare a report ou the draining of the Otipua Lagoon. It appears that unless the work of drainage is begun before next March the grant bf £SOO which has been on the Parliamentary Estimates for the work for nearly twenty years must lapse. Previous renorts go to show that the lao-oon could probably be drained of its main water by the construction of a culvert for about £750, but that it would still be liable to sub-

niersion from flood waters after heavy rains unless an embankment and channel were also built, of which the cost is an entirely unknown quantity. "Unless it can be shown beyond all reasonable doubt that the lagoon can be efficiently reclaimed, and made to become a remunerative asset, without exorbitant expenditure, the Council would be foolish to commence work on the project for the sake of the Government's £SOO. It might find that it was paying too much for the grant. The decision, formed last night, to get a report from the new engineer when he is appointed, in preference to paying specially for a report from an outside engineer, was a commonsense one.