Ministry of Transport Files - Awakino River

These files from the Ministry of Transport deal mainly with the administrative aspects of structures, reclamations, power, telephone, and pipeline crossings of waterways around the marine foreshore and in navigable rivers and lakes. There is not a lot of environmental information in these files but occasionally there is a copy of a report that deals with the environmental aspects of a structure. In about 1964 the Ministry of Transport (MOT) took over the role of licensing structures on the foreshore from the Marine Department (MD) and employed the Ministry of Works and Development (MWD) as its environmental advisers. Reports from the MWD therefore contain much of the environmental information available in these files. Purpose: This dataset provides a brief discussion of coastal information contained within historical Ministry of Transport files, collected during a review commissioned by Environment Waikato as part of the Coastal Database project. The Ministry of Transport (MoT) was responsible for the administration of structures in the CMA and in navigable rivers and lakes from 1964 to 1997. These files are now held in Environment Waikato’s archives. These files contain useful information on the history and legal status of existing coastal structures.

54/27/181: Aerial power line crossing Awakino River 1979. Nothing of interest. 54/6: Structures. File had 3 photographs of a jetty Awakino River. Not much of the river channel visible.

Awakino River mouth

1970s

Frequency of collection: Infrequent and site specific.

Gaps in collection: Many files and pieces of information from the files are missing. Many engineer's reports are missing from the files held by Environment Waikato. Completeness: Only includes information available on specific files. Important to note that Ministry of Works files contain further environmental information relating to these files.

Physical files and photos. Digital Format: n/a

Historical information

Freely available in EW archives. Sensitivity/Confidentiality: No confidentiality, public information.

Files closed. Include a note where this record continues after end date of file where possible – e.g. Dept of Conservation files. These files have been continued where appropriate but have been amalgamated and given a new file number by DOC making sourcing more recent information difficult.

Additional comments: Jetties and Wharves There were two types of jetties and wharves; those built for catching Whitebait, and the fishing boat jetty. As the local fishing industry developed, there was a steady increase in requests for licenses for jetties to load and unload fishing boats. Records in the files indicate that there was either a shortage of hardwood for jetty piles or the locals preferred to rely on piles made from Manuka or Kanuka. This is especially noticeable of the piles used for fishing boat jetties. As the fishing fleet grew so did the demand for fish processing facilities on shore. The increased number of requests for jetties for commercial fishing probably reflects the increased government investment in the fishing industry in the 1960s and 1970s. Related information: All these files are related to Ministry of Works and Development files as the MWD was the adviser to MOT.