FUTURE USES OF THE HUTT

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 47, 23 February 1917, Page 6

FUTURE USES OF THE HUTT

The report of the Chief Electrical Engineer of the Public -Works Department (Mr. E. Parry) on the MangahaoTokomaru hydro-electric scheme seems to definitely settle its superiority to any similar scheme based on the upper reaches of the Hutt River and its tributaries. The Hutt has its origin up in the Tararuas, where Alpha, the Quoin, and Mount Marchant raise their heads. In its higher reaches the river is admirably adapted to barrage, running through a series of perfect gorge-channels cut out in the rock like sluice-boxes; but the total power available is considered by experts to be insufficient for a comprehensive hydro-electric undertaking. As a- source of domestic water supply the Hutt is, however, likely to become of prime importance. In his thoughtful paper, read recently before the Institute of Civil Engineers, Mr. R. W Holmes, Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department, remarks: "As time goes on, there is no doubt that the main supply for the. Hutt Valley and Wellington will be derived from the upper part'of the Hutt River basin, where conditions favour the preservation of the natural vegetation and the. collection and storage of excellent potable water." Floral preservation is already provided for by the proclamation of a forest reserve, where the gun is also forbidden, and where consequently deer and wild pigs and wild cattle and even the native pigeon and kaka, still inhabit, comparatively undisturbed. For Nature reasons, as well as for the utilitarian one advanced by Mr. Holmes, it is important that the reserve should be strictly protected, and perhaps extended.

Touching on the'same subject of the uses of the Hutt, the Chief Electrical Engineer reports that " the amount of water is barely adequate for the needs of Wellington City, if provision is to be made for natural growth and progress, whilst, for the amount.of power available, the cost of development is excessive. In any case the amount of power obtainable is not large enough to supply an extended district. : .■ ." At one time a proposal was made to supplement -Hutt power with power from its Wairarapa neighbour, the Tauherenikau, which runs a roughly parallel course on the other side of Mount Marchant, but this proposition is not touched on in. the report, though probably it has been considered. Mr. Parry's own scheme includes a diversion constituting a remarkable triumph over Nature, because, assisted by a three miles tunnel, he will divert water from the Mangahao—a river belonging to the eastern slopes of the .Tararuas and flowing into the Manawatu east of the Gorge —and will take it through the range to the western side, collecting a portion of the Tokomaru en route/and finally locating his power station within three miles of the railway at Shannon. At this point will be reaped the benefit of the 1040 feet' of fall which Nature, in her own way, would spread out over sixty-five miles o£ river (Mangahao and Manawatu) winding its way to Shannon, via the Gorge. All this can be done, and a costly plant can be erected, and yet the power-product can be made cheaper than that of good steam coal, which New Zealand possesses in limited quantity and should therefore conserve.