Water for Coolgardie.

Manawatu Herald, 29 January 1903, Page 2

Water for Coolgardie.

The chief works under the Coolgardie water scheme are (1) a storage reservoir on the Helena River, (2) pumping installations at eight stations, (3) a. main conduit of steel pipes, (4) receiving tanks, minor reservoirs, and service reservoirs, and (5) distributing pipes on the gold-fields. The storage reservoir is 'capable of holding a two-years* supply, the capacity between the lowest level from which water Can be drawn and the overflow level being 4.600,000,000ga15. This reservoir is formed' by building a concrete weir to a height of 100 ft above the river bed The river bed at the wbir site is 320ffc above the m level, and the lowest supply level from Which water is pumped is 340 ft above sea level, while the main distributing reservoir is no less than 1630 ft above sea level. The total net lift is therefore about 1290 ft, but, allowing for head due to friction in the pipe main, loss of head due to variation of level at the pumping stations, and other such contingencies, a total gross lift of 2700 ft has been provided for. This lift is distributed "Umong of engines and pumps located at eight stations along the route. The main conduit consists of some 60,000 steel pipes of the Mephan-Perguson patent locking-bar type, each 28fb in length. The internal diameter is 30in; the minimum thickness a Quarter of an inch, and the maximum thickness five-sixteenths of an inch. Generally the pipes are laid in trenches and connected by double socketed sleeves, or thimbles, with lead joints At seven of the pumping stations there are artificial receiving tanks or previously existing reservoirs, of sufficient capacity to provide for irregularities in the pumping and other contingencies, and a service reservoir of 1,000,000 gallons capacity has been constructed on Toorak Hill, about 150 ft above the level of the chief parts of Qoolgardie, Some £IBO,OOO out of the total of about two millions and a half has been, or is to be, expended on works beyond Coolgardie, including distributing mains to various mining centres and a service reservoir at Kalgoorlie The pipe main throughout is adjacent to the railway line, and provision is made against the possible emergency of having to cease pumping for a period up to seven days at any one of the pumping stations.—-Post.