ARAPUNI CRITICISED

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 139, 16 June 1930, Page 10

ARAPUNI CRITICISED

OUTSIDE COMMISSION

WANTED

ME. SEMPLE'S VIEWS

■ The nature of the country abotit the Arapuni' hydro-electric development is, in the opinion of Mr. E. Semple, M.P., unsuitable to withstand the strains and stresses imposed upon it by the diversion of the Waikato river, and, in a statement to a "Post" reporter today, he supported ■ strongly the demands which liad been made for an investigation by outside engineers. "This is not the first occasion on rrhieh I have- asked for such an investigation," ho said, "for I placed the same question before the House in December, 1928." Mr. Semple said that his.first serious acquaintance with Arapuni was in the early days of the development, when he was asked by the head of ArmstrongWhitworth to visit the works and give a price, under sub-contract, for the driving of the diversion tunnel, through which the river was carried while the main dam was being constructed, and through which at the present time, the lake waters are being lowered. "I came to the conclusion then that it was no place for a scheme of the kind. The whole country is of volcanic .formation, with no signs of really solid foundation. Anyone who knows thi3 class of country knows that there run through it faulty strata unable to stand up to heavy water pressure. The whole scheme there ■is against the laws of Nature. I went up and had a good look round. I didn't like the place, and came back and told the contractors that I would not touch it. My conviction was early formed, and nothing has been shown to me that has changed that conviction in the least. TIRST BEQUEST FOR COMMISSION. ' •So convinced was I that the scheme was not only a costly one but a dangerous one that I put a question on the Order Paper of the short session of 1928, calling upon the Government to •ippoint an independent board of competent outside engineers to make a thorough investigation and report to the Government. That question is noted in "Hansard" of 11th Deeem r bcr, 1925, with the reply of the then Minister of Public Works, the Hon. E. A. Ransom. He said that he would make fuller inquiry into the criticisms which had been made, and the replies of the Department, and that if Republic inquiry was called for he would be pleased to lay the matter before Cabinet with a view to asking for the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry. '' Shortly after that,'' continued- Mr. Semple, "an,announcement was made in the Press that the Minister had been to Arapuni, and with a doubleended pick had sounded the strata and reported all well. Just imagine a Minister of the Crown, who may know a. little or nothing, or a lot, about this sort of country, giving a few blows with a pick and then telling the. country that in his opinion all was well, and that three millions of public money had been well spent! Of course no one believed that the Minister had tested the- whole job out with a few Wows of his little pick—the Minister did not believe that himself. "What he did was to tell the public what the Department had told him. Now we want to know what some outside engineers think about it." THE FAULT AKEA. Mr. Semple said that ho had visited Ara.pu.ni a second time about Christmas, 1928, in company with Messrs. P. Eraser and W. Nash, M.P.'s, who could verify the statement he proposed to make. They had stood on the high ground above. the power house, between the gorge- and the high level gorge to which the river is diverted by the dam. He had expressed a definite opinion then that that strip of high.ground would not stand the water pressure put upon it by the diversion of the river, and. that that weak feature of the development was threatened fnrther by the' possibility of an earthquake. : Speaking of the nature of the coun--try. generally, Mr. Semple said that he ■understood that although the specifications regarding the power house stated that there was rock foundation, Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth sank 15 feet, found no .rock, and then bored to a considerable depth through pumice without striking sound foundation. In spite of that the Public Works Department was determined to go on and excavated an area largo enough to build the power house and put down a concrete , foundation—what one might call a concrete raft resting on pumice. The unsatisfactory nature of the power house foundations, the continual weakening of the strip of ground between the gorge and the higher level river course by the percolation of water through the porous strata, and the possibility of earth tremors were, in'his opinion, three reasons against the prosecution of the scheme. Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth would not risk their reputation by carrying out. the work insisted upon by the Public Works Department. . Some tme before the present serious trouble showed up, continued Mr. Semple, trouble occurred in the generator room of the .power-house, one unit developing such heavy vibrations that it had to be stopped. It had been suggested by a South Island engineer that it was as a result of the vibration transmitted to the country from the huge generators that the ground had commenced to move. With that view he did not altogether agree; it was more likely that a preliminary and very slight movement of the ground had thrown the generator sufficiently from the true to lead up to the vibrating of the machine, but the opposite effect was a possibility. WATER THROUGH POROUS STRATA. .It had been stated, he said, that for a considerable time past water which had found its way through the ridge between the new river courso and'the gorge had been running "milky," and he proposed to visit Arapuni to make inquiries upon that point, for if that were so it was the clearest indication that what had been pointed out had unfortunately come true: that the water had seeped through the country, first saturating the soft strata, of pug or pipe clay consistency, then commenced to trickle, as a preliminary to getting away in a run which would eat away cavities underground, which in turn would result in earth movements; "This is no 'I told you so' statement I am making," concluded^ Mr. Semple, "I was so absolutely convinced a couple of years ago that the scheme was dangerous and that not another sixpence should be spent upon it that I asked the Government to institute ft public inquiry by engineers, apart altogether from the Public Works Department, and incidentally I made a strong feature of the question during the election campaign of 1928. lam more convinced than ever that none of the quaTter of pounds of public money

which tho, Department now proposes to spend should be spent until competent outside engineers have investigated."