MOVING A RIVER 45 MILES

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2340, 9 January 1926, Page 4

MOVING A RIVER 45 MILES

THE WORLD'S LONGEST TUNNEL. A gigantic engineering enterprise which the American engineers claim to be an even bigger undertaking than the building of the Panama Canal, U now going on. To provide electrical power for the farms and cities of California the Southern California Edison Company la driving a series of tunnels 86 miles long, and costing about £75,000,000, near the summit of the lofty Kaiser Range. The San Joaquin River and Big Creek are to be diverted from their courses, and their waters stored in twelve reservoirs able to hold 784,000 acres a foot deep; and from these the water is to be dropped down the mountains through a chain of 19 power stations, which will be able to generate 1,400,000 horse-power of electrlcty. The Florence Lake tunnel, the first part of this tremendous task, has been practically completed; it has employed 1700 men for four years. It is the longest tunnel in the world (14 miles) and will divert the San Joaquin River 45 miles from its course. The tunnel has been driven through a mountain of granite 9000 feet above the plains, and the tunnellers have spent long winters shut in by snowdrifts.