RESTORATION OF ARAPUNI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21114, 23 February 1932, Page 8

RESTORATION OF ARAPUNI.

The final stage in the reconstruction of the Arapuni headworks is in sight. Arrangements are being made between the Auckland Power Board and the Public Works Department to transfer the whole of the load now being carried by the Horahora station to the Auckland plant for about a fortnight from the first week in April, while the dam at Arapuni is filled and the powerhouse plant restored to working efficiency. This announcement suggests that Arapuni will again be in full commission by the end of April, or well in advance of the time proposed when the programme of repairs was authorised. Professor Ilornell considered that nine months would be sufficient to carry out the work recommended by him, and some of the reports by the Engineer-in-Chief suggested that they might be completed by April 1 of this year, but neither the Government nor the department committed itself positively to anything more definite than resumption of supply by the beginning of the 1932 winter. If supply is renewed by the end of April, the department will be entitled to claim that, with the assistance of various contractors who have been engaged upon the work, the undertaking has been performed punctually. Whether there has been

an equivalent economy in cost is less certain. When Professor Horn ell's report was issued in OptoJjer, 1930, the department estimated the cost of his proposals at £360,000, and added £200,000 for. protection of the falls, the latter amount including liberal allowance for contingencies. There is also to be counted some £200,000 for interest" on idle capital during nearly two years of idleness, making a total addition of £760,000 to the capital expenditure of £2,380,000 on the head works. In 1930, Mr. Furkcrt calculated that by about 1930 Arapuni would be paying its way, including interest, sinking fund and depreciation, even if the repairs cost £890,000, but that confident estimate was based upon the assumption that the department would continue to charge £6 IDs per kilowatt. Economic conditions have changed radically in the interval : and any carelessness in the cost of the repairs combined with the imminent difficulty of. maintaining the present rates for power, may prove to have seriously prejudiced the financial restoration of the Arapuni scheme.