OTAGO CENTRAL IRRIGATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 217, 13 September 1932, Page 5

OTAGO CENTRAL IRRIGATION.

€1,500,000 WORK BEGUN.

RETURN FROM CAPITAL IN DOUBT.

Without exception the most ambitious irrigation undertaking in Central Otago, and probably one of the largest relief works in hand in the Dominion, is the Upper Manuherikia irrigation scheme (says the "Otago Daily Times"). In all, 197 men are finding employment on the project, and good progress is being made with the first section of a scheme which, when completed, will involve an expenditure of approximately £1,500,000. The scheme calls for the storing of water from the Manuherikia River and some of its tributaries in a huge 200 ft dam at the falls, near St. Bathans, for the purpose of irrigating an area of 28,000 acres in the Omakau, Matakanui and Lauder districts, as well as parts of: the vast Maniototo Plains. It is etated in connection with the final cost of the scheme that it was based on comparatively high costs ruling in 1930, and it is expected that the utilisation of unemployed labour will materially reduce the expenditure under the heading of wages. The scheme is being constructed in sections, the first of which is now well in hand. It will provide for the irrigation of 14,000 acres at a cost of £267,000, a per acre cost of £19, compared with a general average on existing schemes of approximately £22 per acre. The commencement ,-pf the first section, however, involves the erection of a huge dam at the falls, so that it i 3 certain that this first section will be debited with a good proportion of the heavy cost of storage for the whole scheme. What the per acre charge on the land for water will be has not yet been decided, but the first figure mentioned was 18/ per acre, a charge which, in view of the experience of the Public Works Department in other schemes, has been abandoned in favour of 12/0 per acre. By levying a rate of 18/ per acre, the Department would secure a return on capital expenditure of approximately 4 per cent, or perhaps a shade more. That would be infinitely more than any existing scheme in Central Otago has been able to pay to date, and there are many quite willing to doubt that the 3 per cent interest resulting from a 12/6 rate per acre will materialise. '