IRRIGATION IN VICTORIA

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24820, 9 March 1946, Page 6

IRRIGATION IN VICTORIA

BIG DEMAND FOR WATER ENGINEERS’ INSPECTION IN CANTERBURY Almost 750,000 acres are under irrigation in Victoria and the demand by farmers for water is so keen that extensive development is projected. To obtain information of the schemes carried out in Canterbury and Central Otago, two engineers of the Victorian State Rivers and Water Supply Commission. Messrs T. A. Lang and C. L. Sanders, were sent to New Zealand. They reached Christchurch last evening at the conclusion of a tour of the schemes. They were accompanied over the Canterbury schemes by Mr J. O. Riddell, irrigation engineer at Meth ven. A big programme of irrigation works was projected in Victoria, they said in an interview. Farmers were demanding irrigation. In Victoria the total expenditure on irrigation reached £15.000,000, and last year the total production from the irrigation areas approached £ 12,000,000—“ a very good return in one year for the investment,” Mr Lang added. A big unsatisfied demand for water existed. The longest carriage of irrigation water in Victoria, they said, was 200 miles from the Hume storage reservoir on the Murray, the capacity of the reservoir being 1.250.000 acre feet. The water was stored for irrigation and the control of the Murray. A full draw-off for irrigation was 5000 cusecs. Enlargement of the largest Victorian reservoir, the Eildon, on the Golden river, was contemnlated. The. reservoir. which now had a capacity of 306,000 acre feet, would probably be enlarged to about 2,333,000 acre feet, and enable the irrigation development to be approximately doubled. None of the Victorian schemes, they explained, combined power development, as with the Rangitata scheme. The engineers declined to comment on the Canterbury schemes or problems studied, stating that they were required to report direct to the Victorian State Commission.