LAKE COLERIDGE STATION.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17983, 29 January 1924, Page 6

LAKE COLERIDGE STATION.

TROUBLE WITH HARPER RIVER. GATES BLOCKED BY SHINGLE. Cr. A. McKellar, chairman of the Electricity Committee of tho City Council, visited tho Lake Coleridge power station on Sunday and found that bv a blockage of shingle tho waters of tho Harper river, recently diverted to supply the lake with additional water for further power production, were flowing not into the lake, as intended, but, uselessly, into the Rakaia river. "The Hamper river," said Cr. McKellar yesterday, "haa by reoent floods changed its courso and is now flowing past the gates leading to the lake, and discharging into the Rakaia river. Tho gates are all silted up with shingle, and the Public Works Department had a staff of men hard at work cleaning tho accumulation away. I should imagine it will tako' at least a weeK before the diverted Harper can again flow into the lake, and in the meantime the level of the lake is falling even with the present demand for water. When the proposed new installation is in operation at the lake for the generation of an additional supply the failure of the Harper river, by floods, shingle accumulation or other natural and likely causes, will be a much more serious aifair than at present, for the margin of safety that exists to-dav will by then have been reduced ,to little, if anything.''