POWER FROM LAKE MANAPOURI

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26205, 31 August 1950, Page 3

POWER FROM LAKE MANAPOURI

LICENCES GRANTED IN 1926

COMPANY SEEKS STATE • COMPENSATION (New Zealand. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, August 30. If the waters of Lake Manapouri were harnessed to generate 300,000 horse-power of electricity, it would be possible to produce Irom £5,000,000 to £10.u00,000 worth of manufactured products yearly at competitive prices, including niuate fertilisers which could seil at hah. the present prices to farmers. The power potential of the Mana£ouri and adjacent water supplies is. pwever. as much as 1000.000 horsepower if fu-ly developed. Ihese points vere made by Mr Leigh Hunt, of Wellington, to tne Industries and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives to-day *n support of a gelation by the Sounds Hydro-electric oneessicns, Ltd.

The company sought compensation for its expenditure over a number of years on compiling data on the power resources of the Manapduri area, the petition said. The company, which was lormed in 1926, was licensed to harness 300.000 horse-power from Manapouri. Overseas interest in the project was interrupted during the depression years and irom 1936 to 1947 the company unavailingly sought from the then Government a renewal of its licences.

The petition alleged that from 1947 onwards, in negotiations with Canadian, aluminium interests which w’ere then interested in the power resources of the West Coast Sounds, “certain data, exclusively the property ox the company. were wrongly and unfairly used” by the Government. The company claimed that this information, which was its only asset after years of investigation, was the sole means by which overseas interests were induced to contemplate the establishment of an aluminium industry in New Zealand.

A memorandum submitted to the committee by the Inspecting Engineer of the State Hydro-electric Department (Mr W. M. Fisher) said that Canadian aluminium interests came to New Zealand in a world-wide search for cheap electrical power and the New Zealand Government put before it no information on the power resources of the Southern Lakes other than that compiled by officers of the Crown.

A similar emphatic denial of the allegation made in the petition was contained in a statement signed by Mr G. W. Clinkard, then Secretary of the Department of Industries ana Commerce. Mr Clinkard said that if the New Zealand Government did at any time become a party to the development of power from Manapouri it would depend substantially on the findings of its own departmental officers, rather than on the data of the petitioner company. Mr Hunt, in his submissions, said the work done bv the company was worth thousands of* pounds to any authority which might undertake the development of a major power scheme in the south.