P.M. ‘considering canal inquiry’

Press, 23 September 1981, Page 6

P.M. ‘considering canal inquiry’

PA Wellington The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) is considering whether to order a Government inquiry into the collapse of the Ruahine power station canal wall. Parliament was told yesterday. The wall collapsed on Sunday, sending water surging across farmland. Local residents said that they had been aware of cracks in the canal weeks ago. Mr Muldoon told a press conference on Monday that there would not be a public inquiry into the collapse. An engineering investigation would be held, however. But the Minister of Works and Development (Mr W. L. Young) told the House yesterday that representations had been made to Mr Muldoon by Mr C. B. Townshend (Nat.. Kaimai). "The Prime Minister has undertaken to consider the possibility of an appropriate Government inquiry,” Mr Young said. Mr Muldoon's office said that his decision was not likely to be known immediately. Mr Young was answering an urgent question by the Opposition Works spokesman, Mr M. A. Connelly (Yaldhurst), who said that there was concern about similar canal structures elsewhere. In Tauranga, it was reported that the three upper power stations in the Tauranga Joint Generation Scheme were all back in

service on Monday night. Trip switches the stations out when the Ruahihi canal collapsed, bringing down the main transmission wires to Tauranga. The Tauranga Electric Power Board s chief engineer, Mr E. W. Graham, said his staff had slung a new transmission line across the canal back from the slip, bypassing the Wairoa switchyard. The fate of the switchyard. which is perched on one side of the slip, is in the balance. . The two transmission lines from Ruahihi are being disconnected so that they cannot be caught in any further slips and drag the switch-yard down. The Tauranga Joint Generation Committee chairman, Mr L. D. Lees, said it would not be known until the findings of the engineering investigation were available whether there was any fault or lack of care. Public money had been employed to build the project and any findings should be a matter of public record. If litigation resulted from the inquiry, relevant information would have to be kept confidential until the litigation was settled. Ultimately, all the findings would be public, he said. There was no suggestion that the contractors had not done the work to specification, he said. Their work had been under constant engin-

eering review ana tne stanaards set on the contract had been used on other canal contracts. The generation committee manager, Mr H. Binney, yesterday announced that the consulting engineering firm of Bricknell, Moss, Partners. Ltd. had been retained to review the adequacy of the design and construction of the canal as prepared by and constructed under- the supervision of the committee’s principal consultants, Worley Downey Mandeno, Ltd. The committee’s insurers, New Zealand Municipalities Co-operative Insurance Company, had retained the services of Beca, Carter, Rollings, and Ferner, Ltd, to report independently. “The whole area is exceedingly dangerous and subject to possible sudden subsidences," Mr - Binney said. “The public is warned to keep right away and gates have been erected to stop access.” The Secretary of the Tauranga Acclimatisation Society, Mr V. Ormond, said yesterday that the Wairoa River downstream from the Ruahihi power station was virtually dead.

“The Wairoa River will take many years to return to a condition where fish can live in it,” he said. “It needs time to settle down. The whitebait would not even want to push back into the river, which is running yellow and still very thick with silt."