The Most Unkindest Cut of all' Progress is Slow at Matawhero

The vital job of widening the Waipaoa River "cut" immediately below the state highway bridge at Matawhero is proving a tough job for the contractors, Halswell Dredging Company of Christchurch.

They might well join Antony and say to the citizens: "This is the most unkindest cut of all".

It took a long time to develop the system of pumping spoil across to the old river bed. Problems were no sooner solved than the contractors uncovered a buried forest which brought them to a halt.

Short of resorting to conventional methods of carting material away in dump trucks, the only alternative appears to be to stockpile it in the riverbed and hope that a winter flood will carry it away "for free".

Flood Could Be Disastrous

But the hoped-for flood wouldn't need to be a big one. At the moment the cut can carry only 112,000 cusecs. What would happen if we got an "old man" flood of 160,000 cusecs is a good question.

The answer is rather alarming. The surplus water would have to be "leaked" over spillways at Waerenga-a-hika, and great areas of the rich Poverty Bay flats would be flooded like they were in the old days.

Such a flood at harvest time could do damage running as high as $1,000,000.

When the cut is completed, the banks at the 'Hika can be raised to design level. The river is then supposed to cater safely for a flood of 170,000 cusecs.

Early completion of the cut is vital. Until it is finished, valuable crops on 25,000 acres of intensive-cultivation land on the flats are still at the mercy of the river.

Footnote. —The economics are probably ridiculous, but wouldn 't it be luvverly if all those hundreds of thousands of yards of spoil from the cut could be dumped in the Taraheru to cover all that ugly mud.