Rakaia power plans may be shelved

Press, 9 August 1976, Page 9

Rakaia power plans may be shelved

Wellington reporter .Any further progress on the proposed complex of hvdro power and irrigation schemes on the Rakaia River will depend upon public pressure on the Ministry of Works and the Electricity Department. Both maintain that their resources are fully committed in other areas, and the financial restraints which have been imposed by the Government on all departments make it unlikely that the two Ministers involved —the Minister of Works (Mr W. L. Young) and the Minister of Electricity (Mr Holland) —will over-rule their departmental officers. The Rakaia proposals were produced by independent consultants, who have no power to act.

The Electricity Department is committed to the Clutha River scheme, and, when that is completed, is likely to give priority to schemes on the Lower Waitaki and lower Clutha before looking at the Rakaia.

The Rakaia proposals will probably be shelved, alongside the proposals made some years ago for a hydro power complex on the Clarence River. A great deal of work will have to be done on the movement of gravel and boulders on the riverbeds before the Electricity Department will consider seriously hydro schemes there.

Some progress is being made in the department’s plans to divert part of the Wilberforce River into the

northem end of Lake Coleridge. The application for a water right to divert part of the river is now before the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority.

Neither the Electricity Department nor the Ministry of Works, which does much of the investigation and handles construction work, is likely to look beyond this low-cost diversion of part of the Wilberforce in the near future. The enthusiasm that the Riccarton Borough Council and the Malvern County Council have shown for the scheme is all that the scheme has in its favour at present. Lobbying by these and other bodies is the only way to keep the scheme in public view; otherwise it will be shelved for years.