MATATOKI STREAM.

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20037, 18 June 1937, Page 2

MATATOKI STREAM.

FILUNG-UP PROCESS

Spoil From Quarry.

SETTLERS' CONTENTIONS.

DEPUTATION TO COUNCIL. Allegations that spoil from the quarry was being put on the Matatoki stream to the detriment of the settlors lower down on the flats, and the definite request that such should be immediately stopped, came from a deputation of Matatoki ratepayers which waited on the Thames County Council at its meeting yesterday.

Mr. T. McLoughlin said the deputation was waiting on the Council to ask that some method of doing away with the spoil from the quarry, other than sending it into the Matatoki Stream, should be devised. If such was not done, the settlers would have to get off their land on account of flooding. "It is either the quarry or the farmers," continued" Mr. McLoughlin. Spoil was going into the creek despite what councillors might say, and the settlers had made up their minds that this action must stop. The creek Avas not a sludge channel. Mr. Maxwell said the spoil drifted down the stream and settled in the drains. It was not impossible to stop the spoil going into the stream. Due to its slow running, the stream would not carry the spoil out to the river, and consequently it acted as a block. The spoil was only blocking the creek more and more. The settlers were determined to see that this method of getting rid of the spoil was stopped.

Mr. L. Coward said the stream water was unfit for stock owing to the silt and slush.

Another member of the deputation pointed out that if the cheese factory had to depend on the stream for its water supply at any time it would have to close down.

The chairman, Mr. H. Lowe, said that in the recent slip at the quarry an enormous amount of stuff had come down, and some of this must have blocked up the creek. The Council realised the settlers' position, but the spoil in the creek at present was a temporary measure until the quarry floor was

cleaned up. Mr. McLoughlin contended that the spoil had been going into the creek for the last 12 months, and that none had

gone over the tip. Mr. Lowe pointed out that there was a minute on the books prohibiting the contractor from putting the spoil in the stream.

It was decided, after the deputation withdrew, that the superintendent be asked to submit a report as to the best means of minimising the trouble, and that the quarry contractor be advised that no more slurry must c;o into the creek.