 Around the middle of the century the Surveyor General Charles Ligar attempted to regulate the stream by building sound walls to constrict its waters (this was referred to as the Ligar Canal).This proved inadequate (being called "an abomination, a pestiferous ditch, and the receptacle of every imaginable filth") 
and eventually the stream was bricked over in the form of a sewer - water percolating through the soil under Myers Park still runs into the old drain under Queen Street to the sea, discharging under the Ferry Building.In 2011, a local artist proposed that, as part of the Council's city centre masterplan, the stream be uncovered and become a centrepiece of a more people-friendly inner city.