Excavator at LYTTELTON

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25810, 23 May 1949, Page 6

Excavator at LYTTELTON

NO WORK FOR UNIT AT ORARI From Our Own Reporter . TIMARU, May 22. “Until further survey work is completed and an economic report on the whole of the Orari, Waihi and Temuka river district has been submitted to Treasury and approved and the necessary financial arrangements made, it is unlikely that works of sufficient magnitude to warrant the use of the tower excavator will be undertaken in the Orari river,” said the chairman of the South Canterbury Catchment Board (Dr. P. R. Woodhouse) last evening. It was reported in “The Press” on Saturday that the machinery, one of the largest pieces of earth moving equipment in the world, imported from America several years ago, was still lying at Lyttelton under a crop of weeds. The machinery was to have been used in the Orari river. “The Catchment Board is dealing with the river problems on a year-to-year basis from rates, with a substantial subsidy and without raising a loan, and part of the urgent work which could have been done by the tower excavator will be carried out with other machinery. It. appears that the transport of the machinery to the work, its assembly and final dismantling and removal, would be a long and costly business and would be justified only if there was a large amount of work in sight,” said Dr. Woodhouse.