The Press MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1974. Manapouri’s power

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33515, 22 April 1974, Page 12

The Press MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1974. Manapouri’s power

Representatives of some North Island Power Boards and the vice-president of the Lake Taupo Development and Protection Society (Mr W. Keys) have recently suggested that the present power crisis could have been avoided had the Government gone ahead with the original plan to realise the full potential of Lake Manapouri by raising the lake. This is not so. Officials of the Electricity Department have pointed out that the lake would not have been raised, had the original plan been followed, in time for the extra power to be available this winter. The critical situation at present, particularly since the recent rain in the south, is in the North Island. Even if extra generating capacity were already installed in the South Island it would help little because the Cook Strait power cable is already being used to capacity. Those who made the suggestions were probably hoping to stir popular demand for the raising of the lake as an insurance against critical shortages of electricity. If this was their hope, they should have prepared a detailed case to show that raising Lake Manapouri would be the cheapest, and, environmentally, the most satisfactory way of achieving this goal. It is not immediately evident that the raising of the lake is to be preferred to other schemes. Nor is it immediately evident that New Zealanders are unwilling to put up with some inconvenience over the next few years or unwilling to pay a little more for their electricity, if that is'necessary, in order to preserve Lake Manapouri as far as possible in its natural state. The implication of widespread support for retaining the natural level of the lake was that many New Zealanders were prepared to do both. The decision not to raise the lake was made well over a year ago. Those responsible for power planning have already taken the decision into account and they have drawn up plans to ensure that the country's power requirements, including those of Comalco, will be met without the extra power which could be available from Manapouri. The Waitaki schemes are well under way and consideration is still being given to the various proposals to exploit the Clutha River. The plans to meet the increasing demand for energy are, to say the least of it, precarious. But little notice need be taken of proposals that appear to have little regard for the need to compare the benefits of a complicated range of choices in power production.