ROXBURGH DAM COMPLETED

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27989, 8 June 1956, Page 7

ROXBURGH DAM COMPLETED

160 FT ABOVE RIVER LEVEL

WORK BEGUN NEARLY TWO YEARS AGO

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, June 7.

The hydro-electric dam 'at Roxburgh is, to all intents and purposes, completed. At 7.40 a.m. today a final pour of concrete brought the last of the main dam blocks up to the roadway level, the dam’s maximum height. Announcing this today, the project manager for the contractors, Cubitts. Zschokke, and Downer (Mr F. J. Hancock) said: “To use an American term, the dam has been ‘topped out.’ ” The block brought to the maximum height this morning was that immediately above the sixth penstock. Its completion means that the dam stretches unbroken between the high rocky banks on each side of the Clutha river.

Mr Hancock said there was still some secondary concreting, such as block filling, handrails, and guttering tc be done before the dam wall was finished. This would not take very long. Yet another stage of the work had been finished in the previous 24 hours. Mr Hancock said. Last night the main steel girders to join the two sections of the power-house were placed in position. '

The now completed dam wall stands 160 ft above the normal river level. When the secondary work is finished, cars will be able to drive across it. and a crane to lift the penstock gates will move along it. Work on the main blocks of the dam started soon after the river had been diverted early in July, 1954.