ENORMOUS PUMP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 106, 7 May 1935, Page 5

ENORMOUS PUMP.

PLAINS DRAINAGE. TO COPE WITH BIG FLOOD. SAFEGUARDING KEREPEEHI. (From Our Own Correspondent.) v AERO A. Monday. Rapidly nearing completion near Kerepeehi is a unique pumping station which is being provided by the Lands Drainage Department as a safeguard against the flooding of the Kerepeehi block and the, as yet, unsettled Kerepeehi extension block. These blocks have gravity drainage to the Piako River and the Awaiti Canal, and this is adequate in such seasons as have been experienced for a great many years; but experience lon c ago has shown that the Piako River can reach a very high flood level and main; tain it for many days. The Kerepeehi blocks, being many miles from the mouth of the river and having an average lev e only a few inches above high tide level, would be inundated in time of high flood, for there would be no tidal action so far from the sea, and it is only due to the tide falling, that gravity drainage is possible in normal times. The Lancls Drainage Department was averse to having the land opened for settlement until it had provided the pump, but the land was of such excellent quality, and the demand for it so great, that in the early years of the Government's financial stringency the Department realised on its asset. At the same time it warned the prospective settlers of the risk they were taking till the pump was ready for emergency use.

Fate lias been kind, to the settlers and the Department, and in a few weeks the Department's engineers will lie able to make no secret of their long held wish for an-"old man" flood that will thoroughly test the efficiency of the whole of their work on Hauraki Plains.

Electrically-driven Pump. The pumping station is located on the left bank of the Awaiti canal, and the pump will lift water over the stop-bank from the "reservoir" canal, a blind cut made from the Awaiti canal stopbank to the Piako River stopbank, opposite the Kaihere landing, for the purpose of providing spoil for the southern stopbank of the Kerepeehi block. The pump will lift over 31,000 gallons of water an hour. Its intake is a 3ft pipe, and its discharge pipe has a little greater diameter. It will bo driven by a 00 h.p. electric motor, power being delivered by the Thames Valley Electric Power Board's mains. Beneath the pumping station there are two sft flood gates to give gravity drainage for the canal in normal times. When the pump is given its trial run the engineers will be interested to observe if there is any syphon action on the motor being stopped.

Provision has been made in the pumping station for the installation of another unit of the same capacity should it be found necessary when further land is drained into the reservoir canal. This canal is outside the Kerepeehi block stopbank, and, but for the fact that the land of the Kerepeehi extension block has a higher average level, it would be in the Piako River ponding area. As it was economically unsound to dredge the Piako River to a capacity sufficient to cope with the record "old man" flood, the flow is restricted near the Kaihere landing to a safe amount, and the rest of the flood goes over the low-lying land east of Patetonga. The next "flood, when it comes, may demonstrate that the Piako River can be permitted to take more water than is at present allowed. If so, the protecting of the Kerepeehi extension block by stopbanks and its draining for settlement purposes will then only await the provision of finance for the Lands DramL e Department. If this area, which is ■how leased for grazing purposes, and has not been badly flooded for many years, fe to be made available for settlement, the second «nit of the pumping station will be required. •

Though primitive wooden ploughs drawn oxen, asses, or camels are -tni used in Morocco, they are being replaced bv modern machines and 1100 motor tractors are now at work.