DANGER FROM ARAPUNI

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3261, 31 January 1931, Page 5

DANGER FROM ARAPUNI

ENGINEER’S SCATHING ATTACK.

ADVOCATES ABANDONMENT. A scathing attack on the policy of of the Government in committing the country to huge sums of money to restore the Arapuni Dam is made by Mr. H. M. Chrystall, consulting engineer, of Christchurch, in a communication received at the Hamilton Borough Council meeting on Wednesday last. It will be recalled that in 1928, before the serious faults were discovered at Arapuni, Mr. Chrystall supported the opinion of Mr. J. D. Holmes, a former chief of the Public Works Department, that the site was unsuitable and that the erection of a dam there constituted a grave danger to the residents of the Waikato.

Mr. Chrystall reiterates these views in his second attack, which is apparently based on personal investigations in the light of the Hornell Report. He trenchantly criticises certain actions of the Government and the Public Works Department, and urges the immediate abandonment of the scheme. The letter was not read at the council meeting, but laid on the table for the perusal of councillors.

Mr. Chrystall stated that if Professor Hornell had spent several months investigating the formation in and around Arapuni he would have given a very much different decision, and had he made an investigation before the scheme was started hundreds of thousands of pounds would have been saved to the taxpayers of this country. DANGER TO DISTRICT.

In the communication Mr. Chrystall states: “At this stage, confident that I am right in my convictions as on a previous occasion in 1928, when once before I warned your district as to the possible dangers and in effect predicted the present collapse. I can do no more but submit •my considered views in the public interest, and once again warn you that, based on what I know of the. site and district, I consider that if the pond above the dam is ever filled again, your district is menaced by a very grave danger.