ARAPUNI DAM.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19719, 9 September 1929, Page 8

ARAPUNI DAM.

EROSION CAUSING CONCERN. (rSESS ASSOCIATION TKLKO&JIK.) AUCKLAND, September 7. A statement that the Board was greatly concerned with what it Baw at Arapuni was made by Mr W. J. Holdsworth, chairman of the Auckland Electric Power Board, who has just returned with members from a visit to Arapuni, where they inspected the damage caused by erosion. Mr Holdsworth said he was going to Wellington on Tuesday to press upon the Minister for Public Works the need of the utmost urgency in pushing on with preventive works. Ho added: "It seems inevitable that the river must be diverted and the power-house closed down until repairs are effected. Our great concern is that this should be done before the winter, when there will be a heavy demand for power." The real extent of the damage and the amount of work required would not be known until the river was diverted. It was essential that this should be done as early as possible. What had happened down there had proved conclusively the tricky nature of the country. It was hard to tell from one day to the other what would happen. Mr Holdsworth said if repair work were carried out during the summer the Board, with its own plant working to full capacity, could carry on with Horahora with assistance from Waihi, Tauranga, and the Government's Diesel plant at Penrose. During the summer months the Board would also be able to assist other districts at times v/hen the Board was not on its peak load, but in the winter it needed all the power it could g et -