TEKAPO HYDRO-ELECTRIC WORKS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25741, 1 March 1949, Page 7

TEKAPO HYDRO-ELECTRIC WORKS

Sir, —Mr Semple will find it difficult to deny the following about the Tekapo hydro-electric works, 1. Several hundred steel drums of imported Portland cement are in a dump by the block factory. They are unopened; all set hard and utterly Useless/ 2. Pitiful waste of money importing an American stratigrapher while men of higher qualifications are employed by our own geological survey. 3. The Minister would not care to publish the cost of excavations at the northern end made in order to drive the tunnel, subsequently abandoned, ariS a shaft substituted. 4. He will deny that costs go far widely exceed the completed estimates, -and that in fact a procedure of cheese-paring is now departmental policy. Regarding Pukgki, not the Minister, the engineers, or anyone else can speak with authority.- The pug encountered renders any pronouncement indeterminate at this stage.— Yours, etc., ANCIENT MARINER. February 3, 1949. Mr W. L. Bell, acting district engineer, Public Works Department, writes as follows: “(1) This refers to M cement obtained during the ’Shortage and now held as a reserve supply. Tests have shown that the cement is quite satisfactory and suitable for concrete works at Lake Tekapo. A few drums have been damaged and holed, possibly by ships’ hooks, and a portion of the cement in these drums has been rendered useless by hydration. “(2) The’ department has not imported a ‘stratigrapher’ from America. Probably the letter refers to an American drilling contractor who has established himself in the country and who has been employed by the department in various places. The department has had the assistance of the Geological Survey branch ®f the department of Scientific and Industrial Research whenever it has been available. ‘‘(3) Considering the difficult nature of the work, the costs are not unduly high, and the cost of the whole scheme, which includes both the conservation of water and the regulation of the lake level as well as the production of power, is justified economically. “(4) The work at *Lake Pukaki is progressing satisfactorily and the earth dam rapidly taking shape.”