Source: Trove website referring to:
25 February 1909
Upper Murray and Mitta Herald
OLD DREDGING IN THE OVENS VALLEY
RUIN OF RIVER FLATS.
A special reporter of the Age writes:—
Dredging for gold in the Ovens Valley commenced about the year 1900. The original appliances used were defective, and at the outset the industry fell on bad times. Some New Zealand dredging experts then came over, and by the improved plant which they introduced better results were obtained.

By degrees the dredges have been modified in type to meet local conditions. The machines at work in the Ovens Valley to-day are far more effective than those first introduced by New Zealanders. One hears of dredges costing £10,000 to build, a sum about double of that involved in the construction of the first unsuccessful types used. The increased capacity of the latest dredges makes them more than ever undesirable from the point of view of those who object to the rich agricultural soils of the State being destroyed for all time. By its superior equipment, the modern bucket dredge can eat up more ground than could its immediate predecessors. In other words, its capacities for destruction are greater.

It is computed by the officials of the Sludge Abatement Board that from the beginning of 1900 to 30th June, 1908, the dredges working on the Ovens River dredged an area of 1190 acres. Of this area, 828 acres are set down as river bed and old diggings, 332 acres are described as being pastoral land, and only 30 acres are classified as suitable for agricultural purposes.. In the eight years under review, 101,200oz. of gold have been won. Dividends paid represent £101,140, but those, in most wises, are exclusive of the cost of-the plant. That is to say, the owners paid for their plant out of revenue, and thereafter divided up the profits of working. At the present time some 40 dredges are operating in the Ovens Valley, the work being carried out continuously night and day, excepting Sunday. Approximately 500 acres of land are being destroyed for all time every year. The success of the industry has encouraged its growth. Applications for dredging lenses are being made with persistency over some of the most valuable agricultural sections of the State.

The farmers in the vicinity of Myrtleford some time ago formed a farmers’ protection league to offer battle to the encroaching hosts of the devastating dredges. It is only by persistent and insistent work that they have been enabled to keep their enemy at bay. A few weeks ago I was at Huon Lane railway station, in the Mitta Mitta Valley. On the station building was posted an ordinary dredging lease application. If it is approved of, some of the richest fattening lands in one of the most prolific districts of Victoria will, in a few years’ time, be nothing but a bed of shingle.

Similar attacks are said to be threatened on the fine lands of the Kiewa Valley. The dredging industry aspires to a free hand in the best agricultural districts of Victoria. A description of the destruction caused in the Ovens Valley tells only too sad a tale of what this means. According to the Sludge Abatement Board, only 30 acres out of 1190 dredged in the Ovens represent agricultural land. According to local farmers, this statement is wide of the truth. Much, if not all, of the 332 acres described as pastoral land was good for cropping. According to their contention, the area destroyed by dredging that was fit for agriculture is nearer 300 acres than 30. And the work of destruction is proceeding at; the rate of 40 acres a month.

The Ovens Valley consists of a surface of exceedingly rich loam, resting on a bed of shingle. This loam, or “overburden” as the gold-seekers term it, varies from two to about twenty feet in depth. The mining officials term only the deeper loams a good soil. The shallower loams, which they regard as fit prey for the dredges, are contemptuously described as pastoral land, that is to say, land of little or no agricultural worth. In the 1907 report we are given an example of the Board's methods of estimating the quality of land. ‘‘There is about eighteen inches to two feet deep of loamy soil overlying gravel. Owing to the growth of St. John's wort, the land, which was used for grazing, was practically valueless.” In other words, because a careless land-owner allowed it to become infested with an eradicable weed, it should be destroyed for all time.

In the neighborhood of Porepunkah, a number of dredges have been at work for some time. A sorry spectacle of destruction they have worked of what were at one time rich, prolific soils. Piles upon piles of gravel mark the cemetery of what, a few years back were fertile broad acres. Homesteads have been washed away, and are in the course of being washed away. What should be one of the most productive and pleasant spots in Victoria is rapidly being turned into a howling wilderness. Day by day—and three shifts in every 24 hours—fertile soils with the capacity to sustain and carry a large population are being swept down the Ovens River, never to be seen again. The dredger is winning his gold, why should he care about the morrow?

A few days ago I stood in the Ovens Valley not far distant from the Porepunkah railway station. A large dredge was in position close to an old homestead, with its broad fertile acres. Steadily it was sucking its way in towards the doomed buildings, which for many years had been the homes of man. The richness of the surrounding broad acres was visible to even the inexperienced eye. The high towering, vigorous trees planted round the homestead told the story of its wholesome and deep soil.

An inspection of the land already dredged revealed a mournful sight. The fertile-surface loam had been stripped and sent away down the river for all time. A mass of gravel like the shingle bed of a New Zealand river was all that remained. The picturesque homestead, with all that it means, is soon to meet the same fate. Held under a dredging lease, by the payment of a few paltry pounds, the owner of the dredge is given the power to destroy in eternity this beautiful land, with its endless potentialities. If the system is not drastically and immediately checked, many of the choicest soils in Victoria will soon he nothing but deserted barren shingle wastes.

Some of the settlers have fought their hardest to defeat the destructive march of the dredger. With them it was not a question of the market value of their holdings. They had taken up fine lands years before, or had inherited it from pioneering parents. In any case there were peculiar—one might almost say sacred—associations woven around it. It was the home which had been carved out of the one-time forest, by industry and courage. ..To have to sell such a place to another farmer would sever many tender ties ; xxx xxx time intended to turn such hard-won home into an unspeakable wilderness was an act of hateful sacrilege.

Yet, it has been done; it is the law of the land; and, unless the methods of the Mines Department are altered, these discreditable acts will be repeated. The experience of a settler not far from Eurobin sheds an illuminating light on the practices complained of. Portion of his farm was applied for as a dredging lease. Despite his protests, it was. granted. As the dredger and the farmer could not agree as to the compensation to be paid, the case was dealt with in the warden's court, when the price per acre was fixed at £15. Regarding this as an excessive award, the owner of the dredge appealed to the Court of Mines. Here again the farmer had to fight his case. The compensation fixed by the Warden’s Court was considerably reduced by the appellate tribunal, and the amount payable as compensation set at £7 per acre. Costs, of course, went with the verdict, and it is said that the unfortunate farmer, in addition to losing his land at-the price named, was muleted in £50 legal expenses for presuming to differ with the owner of a dredge as to the value of his land, which he did not wish to sell!

This same land which the Court of Mines valued at £7 per acre is exceptionally fertile! According to the testimony of reputable local farmers, it can,, if properly tilled, produce every year crops worth up to £30 and £40 per acre. The following statement is made as to what was actually produced from 3 acres of it immediately before it changed hands:—First it was sown in potatoes, the yield being 200 bags, or 20 tons, which sold at £5 per ton. Immediately reploughed, it was sown in oats the return being 3 tons to the acre, with hay selling at the rate of £3 a ton in the stack.

In other words. During a twelve month £127 worth of produce was taken from 3 acres of typical land which had been compulsorily sold at the rate of £7 per acre to the dredger for total destruction. In similar land, £300 worth of maize has been sold from 20 acres, while hops, market garden stuff, and all kinds of roots and cereals thrive in the Ovens Valley. But, as the great bulk of the land is used for grazing, its value is not yet fixed on its productive basis as established by cultivation.

To meet the objections of those who complained of the ruthless destruction of valuable land caused by dredging, the Sludge Abatement Board has made many promises about resoiling. So far, none of these fair promises have been redeemed. There is not an acre of ground resoiled in the Ovens Valley that will stand inspection. The Board has spoken with many voices on this subject. In the 1907 report a large plate is shown of the Confidence bucket dredge, with resoiling apparatus in position. “On 30th January, 1908, the date of the board’s visit,” so the report runs, “the Confidence dredge was replacing from 80 to 85 per cent, of the surface loams on top of the dredged gravels, the surface being practically restored to its former condition of usefulness for grazing and agriculture. But in a later report the following admission is made :—“ We find that none of the appliances now in use on bucket dredges in Victoria can be relied on under all ordinary conditions to accomplish successfully the resoiling of dredged land.”

It is now frankly admitted that the problem of resoiling has not been solved, but hopes are entertained of more promising developments in this direction. In the meantime, rich agricultural soils are being swept away to the ocean at the rate, in the Ovens Valley alone, of 500 acres a year. Agricultural authorities, however, ridicule the idea of any system of resoiling being successful. They know how careful farmers have to be in their ploughing operations not to bring the crude subsoil to the surface.

Acres of land have been rendered barren in Victoria because the turning of too deep sod buried the mellow loam and brought the sub soil to the surface. Any interference with Nature’s arrangements, especially on a large scale, is doomed to failure.

The evils of the dredging industry are no new topic. But since the dredges commenced work in Victoria our columns have made many references to their potentialities for harm. It was pointed out how, through their agency, crystal-clear rivers would he polluted into dirty muddy waterways, and how rich, valuable soils would be destroyed forever. Abundant promises were made that precautions would be taken to prevent such happenings. None of these promises have been even partially kept. The Sludge Abatement Board in the first, and the ex-Minister of Mines in the final, instance, have looked at the whole position from a mining point of view. The glorification of their own department was their one end and aim. Hence the scandalous state of affairs that exists in the Ovens Valley to-day.

The then Minister of Mines personally signed all the leases which have made possible the ruinous destruction of agricultural soils by dredging. He was the final court of appeal in such matters. In many cases he visited the districts affected. In the Ovens Valley the fanners showed him the ruin that was being wrought; they have several times approached him in deputation. Notwithstanding the facts that were thus emphatically brought under his notice, he exercised his supreme and unchallengeable decision far too frequently in support of an industry which is indubitably destroying in perpetuity thousands of acres of rich Victorian territory. To prevent a repetition of such baneful practices, it. is necessary that the dredging of agricultural soils should be absolutely prohibited.