KAITI V. BREAKWATER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 503, 6 September 1890, Page 2

KAITI V. BREAKWATER.

[to the bditob.J Sjb,—Taking my constitutional ramble ye’terday by the Raiti sea beaches and miniature bays, I observed, after thg late bad wintry weather, a great change in several places between Boat harbor and Moa.egg bight: a distance of some two and a half miles or thereabout. For some time past some drays and bullock, carts have been employed hauling and earring all the flat boulder stones that could be lifted from the Ijuje ot kha seaward cliffs and taken into the

town : consequently on those natural breakwaters being removed the tea has now full p'ay on the unprotected cliff bases, and naturally, as in fact, there are thousands of cubic yards of clay, sand, and pebbles, literally deluged offand carried into the sea at every high tide ; carried with an easterly and southerly breeze full tilt up toward the artificial two hundred thousand pound breakwater, and deposited there or thereabouts. It was a grave error made by somebody in not agreeing to Mr Barker’s demands for privilege of quarrying stone on his estate, as for every ton of stone taken from the island beaches, those tons of solid stone have bean, and are now, and must be, in the future, followed by many many more tons’ of gravel and sand from the same breeding grounds, to join company with their fellows in the artificial breakwater or thereabouts. And it the error committed in thus removing the natural protection of the bases of :he Kaiti cliffs was not warning sufficient, there is to-day a batallion of oxen, carts, and men, helther-skelther carrying off the gravel from the beaches. Well we must have gravel, but why not from where it can be well spared? From the Waikanae beaches ? Sir, I make no charge for my engineering advice and opinion, but give both free, gratis, and for nothing; yet they are a result of at least ten years’ observation.—l am, etc. Wisi-Acbb. Sept. 3, 1890,