COBB POWER: A REALITY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 29 May 1944, Page 4

COBB POWER: A REALITY

THAT hackneyed term “red-letter-day” can be justly applied to Nelson district to-day, for we are witnessing the fulfilment of a hydroelectricity hope long deferred. Cobb power is flowing through the transmission lines into house, office, shop, factory and cow-shed. If it doesn’t seem much different from the regime of last week or last year that is a way electricity has. It comes silently, unobtrusively but very effectively once the Government, engineers and workmen have done their jobs. Mr F. T. M. Kissel said in Nelson earlier this month that it matters little to consumers whence comes the power as long as it does come. Now State-gener-ated electricity from a hydro system is with us and the new-ly-elected supply authorities have their opportunity to make the best use of it.

The moment at which the switchover was made yesterday marked the culmination of years of advocacy, effort, disappointment and then better fortune. It is, however, much better to look forward than backward on the district’s electrical undertaking. While not forgetting how « supply authorities have had to erne to make inadequate facilities render the best possible service under trying conditions, it is more profitable to reflect that Nelson is lucky to see a hydro-electricity plant completed in wartime and that we—almost alone in the Dominion—have a considerable overplus of electrical energy.

Much planning, hard work and money have gone into the making of the Cobb enterprise and the Public Works and other engineers are entitled to the community’s appreciation for the way they have surmounted difficulties. Particularly does this apply to Mr E. B. Mackenzie, District Electrical Engineer to the Department, in whose hands has rested the main responsibility for the electrical side of the work. An official opening by the Minister is well worthwhile, but the district need not wait for that to count our latest blessing. And Marlborough can take heart that the electric power poles are coming over the hill.