Government
engineers continued dredging and undertaking wall work on the troublesome Upper
and Sand Flats rather than embarking on the more expensive downstream construction
recommended by Coode. Yet by 1890, and despite engineering works costing £112,500
to date, parts of the flats still only carried 9ft (2.7m) at low water so that
moderate-sized coastal steamers of about 1,000 tons could still only negotiate
the river at very high tide.2 Alexander Jardine, Nisbet's successor
as Chief Engineer in the Harbours and Rivers Department, drew up plans to extend
and raise the river walls to create stronger scouring for greater depths. Before
these could be put into operation, however, all work ceased due to the severe
economic depression of the 1890s. [Fitzroy
River surveys, 1890.]
Alexander
Jardine's plan of walls and dredging channels in Upper and Sands Flats reaches,
Fitzroy River, 1890. (QV&P)
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