Rain bursts hydro station pipeline

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 2

Rain bursts hydro station pipeline

PA Nelson Sixty metres of a twin pipeline feeding the Cobb power station in Golden Bay burst during torrential rain about 2 a.m. yesterday. The hydro station feeds the national grid. Although automatic valves soon shut off the supply, the break freed torrents of water on to the already-saturated slopes near the plant, cutting access roads in three places.

A total of 225 mm of rain fell in the isolated Cobb Valley in the 24 hours to 9 a.m. yesterday and it was still raining heavily yesterday morning. The Ministry of Energy’s acting district manager, Mr J. L. Walkey, said that the pipes failed near the exit of a two-kilometre tunnel from the Cobb reservoir.

Because of the heavy rain excess storage has had to be spilled and this has added to the problems around Takaka, about 40km away. Since Sun-

day the township has been flooded on two sides.

One shopkeeper, stranded out of town, engaged a local helicopter to fly him to his premises to remove stock. Mr Walkey said that it was not known when Cobb would be generating again. “It will be quite some time,” he said. “We have to restore the access roads first and then deal with any wash-out at the-break.”

In Golden Bay, many motorists were cut off by rising flood waters. Thirty-five people spent the night at the Rat-Trap Hotel, at Upper Takaka. Another 20 had to travel from the hotel to Takaka in their cars on the backs of trucks as flood water covered the State highway.

The road to Takaka was still closed late yesterday morning.

The Takaka Hill Road was closed on Sunday night by slips. A huge rock, 2.5 metres

high and five metres long, blocked half the road three kilometres below the summit on the Takaka side.

Workmen late yesterday were planning to blow up the boulder.

In Wellington, the Conservator of Forests, Mr Peter Maplesden, said that the storms in the Nelson region had caused severe damage in the Golden Downs State Forest. Up to 12 months production of radiata pine could be lost.

The extent of the damage was not yet known, but trees in various parts of the forest had been blown down, he said'

Mostly it was mature trees, about 30 years old that had been affected in the heavy easterly storm of the last four days. “We can’t accurately assess the damage until the weather clears and aerial photographs can be taken,” Mr Maplesden said.