FEAR OF FLOODS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 694, 22 February 1933, Page 12

FEAR OF FLOODS.

Belfast Residents Express Concern. MORE PROTECTION WANTED. Fear that the Waimakariri River, when in heavy flood, might break through the south branch running behind Belfast and under Whites’ Bridge, was uppermost in the minds of speakers who criticised the Waimakariri River Trust’s scheme at a meeting of residents of Belfast and surrounding districts, at Belfast last night. After a heavy bombardment of questions lasting over an hour, Mr 11. W. Harris, engineer to the Trust, was asked to answer the many points raised, and at the conclusion of the meeting of two and a half hours he was accorded a vote of thanks for the able and straightforward manner in which he had replied. Completion of Bank Urged. The meeting carried a motion requesting the Trust immediately to proceed with the completion of the protection work in the gap between the lower groyne at M’Lean’s Island and the top qf Coutts Island, a distance of four miles. Another motion that the Trust be urged immediately to open up the “cut” through Wright’s Bank so as to allow flood waters to escape more readily was carried by a small majority, it being contended by its opponents that it would be unwise to request the Trust to do the work if the protection work was not advanced sufficiently to warrant that action. Mr Harris pointed out that the Trust could do very little additional work before the end of the financial year on March 31, as it had already obtained an overdraft at the bank in anticipation of the year’s rates, the bulk of which was not expected to be paid until March. Mr J. R. D. Johns, as convener of the meeting, said that during the last two floods there had been more water in the south branch than for the last fifteen or twenty years. If there were a flood such as the one in 1906, “ then God help the people in Belfast.” The Trust had taken money to make the river safe from Halkett to the sea. but had left a space of four miles above Coutts Island unprotected. Taking his memory back fifty years, Mr Johns said that a portion of the bed of the south branch was now 18ft higher. The speaker predicted that in the next flood three-quarters of the Waimakariri would go down the south branch. “ There is every chance of the whole of the next flood coming through the south branch,” declared Mr K. Smith, in agreeing with Mr Johns’s views. Opening up Wright’s “ Cut.” Mr W. P. Spencer, a member of the Trust, stated that there was a grave danger of the flooding of Belfast, to prevent which the protective groyne should be proceeded with, and the new cut through Wright’s Bank opened up to let the whole of the waters through. The “ cut ” could accommodate the whole of the water, or should be able to do so. He urged that this work should be put in hand immediately. With eighteen years’ experience of the moods of the river, Mr George Shipley said that his study of the shingle had made him not at all dogmatic. The river in some floods had hugged the south bank, and the next flood might see it hard against the north. There was no saying that the river would not, in the next flood, come through between M’Lean’s Island and Templar’s Island, and so threaten Bel fast. He insisted that the protective bank should have been completed before the second line of defence, represented by a line of groynes, was undertaken.

Mr George Gould, invited to speak, said that as a lay member of the Trust, he was diffident about criticising the plans of experts. Some of the groynes were put in to encourage siltation, but that was a matter secondary to the protection of the districts nearby.

Engineer’s Explanation-. The ultimate policy of the Trust, said Mr Harris, was to confine the whole of the water to the main chan nel. Due to the unemployment situation the work was four or five years ahead of the original programme, and was within twelve months of completion.