WATER RACE TO SERVE 18,560 ACRES IN AMURI

Press, Volume C, Issue 29702, 21 December 1961, Page 16

WATER RACE TO SERVE 18,560 ACRES IN AMURI

Properties in an area of 18,560 acres in the Amuri county will be supplied with a continuous supply of stock water from a water race which will be built soon. Tenders for its construction are now being called. The race is to be built for the Amuri County Council on behalf of ratepayers in the Balmoral water race special area—the area embraced by the scheme. Finance for the project has been provided from stock issued by the county council and taken up by the 26 property owners who are included in the scheme. The race will follow almost identically the course of a water race constructed in the 1880’s for the old Balmoral homestead property. The inlet will be from the Hurunui river, near its junction with the Mandamus river. Capable of carrying 15 cusecs, the race will be six miles long and will include four miles and a half through the Balmoral State Forest. It will link with existing races supplying the area. These at present depend on a spring, which gives an inadequate supply. Original Race The original race serving the old Balmoral property was designed by George Phipps Williams, a highly qualified engineer, who in a letter to the owner of the station. Mr W. Thomson, dated March 25. 1889, said the Hurunui river intake presented the most favourable source of supply and would ensure a permanent supply in all seasons. He said a capital site for tapping the river would be about a quarter of a mile below the junction with the Mandamus river. This race was built at a cost of £2109. So ideal was the course which Mr Thomson selected for the race that the consulting engineers for the new project. Messrs Royds and Sutherland, have followed substantially the old race in planning the new project. It will be fed entirely by gravity, so that there will be no operating costs once the scheme is working. In a report on the new scheme Messrs Royds and Sutherland said that there was no information as to how long the old race operated, but that it was apparently abandoned when the river washed away a flume about a mile below the intake. There was now no sign >f the old intake, which must have been eroded and washed away by the river “Because of the river erod-

ing at the intake, the first mile and a quarter of the race will have to be a good deal deeper than the old one. The old race has completely filled in near the intake; beyond that it is partly filled in,” the report said. "For most of the distance, through the forest, the old race, no<w partly filled in, will be reinstated, and a maintenance roadway built beside it.” An agreement has been made between the county council and the New Zealand Forest Service whereby the Forest service will clear trees from the line of the race and carry out certain maintenance work within the State forest, and at the intake. The Forest Service will also use the race supply to keep its fire-fighting sump* in the forest area full.