SLIPPING COUNTRY

Evening Star, Issue 23322, 19 July 1939, Page 8

SLIPPING COUNTRY

COURSE OF DIVERSION RACES CHANGED TWELVE-FOOT PIPES USED LARGEST IN SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE [Per United Press Association.] ASHBURTON, July 10. Slipping country on the Surrey Hills necessitated the changing of the course of the Rangitata diversion race for a mile and a-lialf. The slip, on the property of Mr A. N. Gngg, M.P., is 250,000 yards, moving at the rate of an inOh a day. * Mr Semple yesterday authorised a plan whereby, from a safe distance from the slip, the water will drop through pipes to the down country lOOyds below the level of the abandoned race, and under a 13ft head bo forced up to the hillside race beyond the danger point. The pipes will be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. They will have an inside diameter of a 12ft shell, in which probably lin steel reinforcements will be used, having a thickness of lOin. The department proposes to make the pipes at Surrey Hills. Each 10ft section will weigh 23 tons. The change of plans will not delay completion of the diversion. The Minister announced that the Lake Tekapo storage development and hydro-electric power scheme will bo begun in throe or four months.