Interest in water resources

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 10

Interest in water resources

Professor D. G. Huber, who is professor of mechanical engineering and head of the common curriculum department at the University of Calgary, in Canada, is spending almost a year’s sabbatical leave at Lincoln College looking into the water resources of the Canterbury Plains, and in particular the ground water or under the surface water resources.

He has been teaching hydrology and hydraulics for many years, first at the University of Toronto then at McMaster University at Hamilton, where he was head of the mechanical engineering department, and for the last five years at Calgary where his job is now partly also an administrative one. His interest in hydrology has brought him to New Zealand. His interest in Lincoln was initially sparked off by an article on hydrology in New Zealand and Australia written by the former head of the agricultural engineering department at Lincoln and director of the Agricultural Engineering Institute, Professor J. R. Burton. He wrote to a number of universities, including Lincoln College, and he says that the answer he got from Lincoln intrigued him. Hence his journey to Canterbury. Commenting on his local ground water inquiries, Professor Huber said it seemed that there was a possibility that animals would be removed from the high country because of the erosion problem and this meant that agriculture would have to be intensified on the plains and with th? local population growing and food production for export becoming ever more important there would have to be maximum efficiency in agricultural production and this meant use of irrigation. It looked as though in the future there could be a shortage of water for agricultural use, so ground water could become very important for irrigation. Professor Huber said that quite a lot of work had been done on water resources by people like the North Canterbury and South Canterbury Catchment

Boards and Mr D. D. Wilson of the Geological Survey, but there was still a lot to find out and it was an expensive and time absorbing exercise. One of the things that they were interested in was whether there was much leakage to the sea from underground supplies. If water could be stored under ground then it might be deliberately stored there in periods of flooding, but if it was going out as fast as it came in then there was no storage possibility. This was something that was not easy to find out. They were looking to the experience of a group in Israel which had had a similar problem. Having to make use of all water available they had been involved in determination of ground water and prevention of its seepage and had used radioactive material and the natural radioactivity of water in determining answers to these problems. A member of the Lincoln staff, Dr Bessel D. van’t Woudt, had been there and believed that there was a possiblity that one of the Israeli group would come to this country next autumn. But Professor Huber said that the local exercise was a long term one and would be going on long after he had left. There was a group at the college that was interested in the project and would be carrying on with it. Professor Huber said that there were large supplies of water in Canada but there was a problem of keeping it out-of American hands. There was, for instance, a treaty between the twc countries on the control ol the waters of the Columbia river, which rose in Canada and which supplied suet installations in the, Unitec States as the Grand Could

dam and other water and electric power producing facilities in the United States. Under the treaty the United States was able to instal storage dams on the Columbia in Canada. This caused a certain amount of political reaction but a certain amount of pressure was placed on Canada by the United States because the United States

was Canada’s biggest customer, just as the reverse was true, and Canada wanted concessions for entry of manufactured goods into the United States. On the other hand the Americans suggested a pooling of natural resources of the North American continent such as water and also natural gas, of which Canada had a great deal. There had been plans to divert certain rivers from one watershed to another and these were apparently practicable, but it was a question of politics and of internal resource allocation. It was obvious that the Canadian population would grow and the time could conceivably come when Canada could also be short of water, particularly if its resources were also diverted to the United States. But on the other hand Professor Huber said that such commercial arrangements as an automobile pact between the two countries, under which certain types of automobiles were made in Canada exclusively for the American market, were -important to the Canadian communities like Windsor, Oakville and Oshawa where they were made. Likewise parts were made in Canada for inclusion in vehicles made in the United States and these parts could be exported without being subject to tariffs, and likewise there were branches of American agricultural machinery manufacturers in Canada and their products could move freely between the two countries without being subject to tariffs. But, he said, Canadian producers of chemicals and textiles were threatened with extinction by American giants ; with a much larger volume of production. Lately, Professor Huber i said, a problem had arisen I over the purchase of land s in Canada by Americans —

it was now not possible to go to a summer holiday resort without finding large areas of land owned by Americans — and the recent elections had been fought in part on this issue with some political parties promising to place stringent controls on this sort of activity. Professor Huber said he understood that Americans and Canadians were interested in buying New Zealand land and subdividing it and it was something that he wanted to warn New Zealanders about. It was happening in Fiji and the Pacific Islands and it could happen here. Retiring homes would be erected for wealthy Americans and hotels would also be built. It would be a shame to see it happen here.