✨ Public Works Report
232
Public Works Office,
Christchurch, August 21, 1872.
HIS Honor the Superintendent directs the publication of the following Report of the Board of Conservators for the South Waimakariri District, upon the condition of the Protective Works within that district.
WALTER KENNAWAY,
Secretary for Public Works.
Christchurch,
December 28, 1871.
To His Honor THE SUPERINTENDENT,
Christchurch.
SIR,
I have the honour, by direction of the Board of Conservators for the South Waimakariri District, to report to you upon the present condition both as to efficiency and state of repair of the protective works within the limits of their jurisdiction.
At the date of our last report the following works were in existence:—
1st. The upper embankment near Watson’s accommodation house, covering the Christchurch and Halswell channels.
2nd. The Sandy Knolls bank, covering the Christchurch channel.
3rd. A new bank below the last intended to catch any overflow that might outflank it.
4th. A bank near Mr. McLean’s station, covering the low ground at the head of the Styx channel.
These works were all in a satisfactory state of repair, and the Board hoped that, by depending on them, any further considerable outlay might be avoided.
It soon, however, became apparent that some change in the system to be pursued with the river must be adopted.
The works mentioned above, while likely to protect the country liable to inundation from any sudden disaster, were evidently not sufficient to control the action of the river. Neither their position, nor their direction in reference to the general course of the river, tended in any degree to confine the stream to its present bed, and it was evident that unless a very wide space, in addition to its present shingle bed, was abandoned to the river, the stream itself must be attacked and some attempt made to regulate the course of the water within the very wide area of shingle which it was already traversing.
The problem which the Board thus proposed to itself for solution was manifestly one of exceeding difficulty, but the importance of succeeding in the work was increased by the consideration that as long as the course of the stream was wholly uncontrolled no attempt at planting willows or other trees of the same description could be successfully made. All the information which the Board had been able to procure led them to believe that the growth of willows might be of material assistance in protecting the banks of the river. But as no trees could be planted either in or on the borders of the running stream, it was manifest that, if planting were to be attempted, the positions chosen must be protected so that the trees might have time to establish themselves, and both collectively and individually operate in the future as an effectual barrier in the event of the river returning to the channel in which it had heretofore been running.
Next Page →
Canterbury Provincial Gazette 1872, No 46
✨ LLM interpretation of page content
🏗️ Report of the Board of Conservators for the South Waimakariri District
🏗️ Infrastructure & Public Works21 August 1872
Protective Works, South Waimakariri District, Report, Board of Conservators
- Walter Kennaway, Secretary for Public Works