THE WAITAKI DAM

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21244, 16 August 1934, Page 10

THE WAITAKI DAM

Structure Almost Completed MEN BEING SENT AWAY Rapid pi-ogresa is being made with the Waitaki dam above Kurow and it is expected . that the concreting of the giant structure will be completed early next week. Already seven of the 11 sluice gates in the dam have been closed and only a small gap in the body of the dam remains to be built up. This should be finished next week and it should then not be long before the dam is finally completed. The engineer in charge of the hydro-electric works (Mr R. H. Packwood) stated last evening in a telephone conversation with a representative of "The Press" that the work had been slightly delayed by the abnormally coir spell early last month. Since then, however, conditions had been eery favourable and he expected that the work on the main structure would be completed befo-e very long. Once the dam has been completed the last of the sluices will be closed and the waters of the Waitaki river allowed to form a lake behind it. This should take less than three days and by the time the water has risen to the level of the damcrest and begun to flow over the 1200 ft spillway a lake live miles long and covering 2000 acres will have been formed. As soon as the lake has been formed and water is available for the turbines the work of testing the turbines and generating equipment will be begun. This may take as long as a month, but there now scorns every possibility that the new station will be delivering power by the end of October at the latest. Vr Packwood stated last evening that as the work on the dam slackened off men were being sent down to work on the QueenstownKmgston road at. Lake Wakatipu. Between 40 and 50 men were being sent away this week and others would follow later.