No need to dredge if river flows naturally

FOR a moment I thought Mr Eckhoff (Letters, 27.8.22) was joking when he suggested that the Otago Regional Council should dredge silt from the region’s rivers, because the thinking behind his idea appeared to come from another century.

Rivers don’t become overloaded with silt when they are allowed to flow naturally, out of catchments where care has been taken to leave sufficient vegetation to stop the land sliding into waterways, where heavyfooted animals like cattle aren’t allowed to break down banks, and where enough natural variation and volume of flow remains within the river. Rivers are brilliant at healing themselves, if they are given half a chance. Most modern thinkers in the farming community know this.

Mr Eckhoff was, for a number of years, an elected representative of the Otago Regional Council, the body that has responsibility for the health of our waterways. I saw nothing in his comments made during his time on the ORC that suggested he stood for any of the things that might have worked towards improving the health of our rivers.

Asking ORC ratepayers to foot the bill for dredging our waterways is like asking for an ambulance to be placed at the bottom of a cliff — one that Mr Eckhoff played a part in creating. Dougal Rillstone

Maori Hill

Tractor

WITH regard to Saturday's (ODT, 27.8.22) frontpage photo, Ferguson merged with Massey (Harris) in 1953 so that is not a 1940s tractor. Is the other tractor shown a Nuffield? It might be older.

Civis

Allan Golden Pine Hill

Civis (ODT, 27.8.22) nails it: ‘‘The major factor in worldly success remains the accident of birth.’’ If only our social, economic, and political systems were to acknowledge this undeniable fact.

Mike Palin Belleknowes