WAITAKI POWER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21934, 18 October 1934, Page 12

WAITAKI POWER

A STUDY IN COSTS expenditure to date SUM OF £2,297,000 INVOLVED A COSTLY UNDERTAKING [BT TELEGRAPH OWX CORRESPONDENT] OAMARU, Wednesday As was only to be expected with one o£ the greatest projects of its kind upon which the New Zealand Government has embarked, the Waitaki hydroelectric scheme has swallowed up a vast amount of public money. To the taxpaver one of the most significant features of the undertaking will be this question of cost. The full story of the expenditure on the scheme has not yet been told, but to date a sum of £2,297,000 has been expended, irrespective of the heavy interest charges which have accrued since the commencement of operations six years ago. Some extensive works have yet to be completed before the final bill of costs can be prepared, among them being the erection of the power line from Waitaki to Halway Bush, near Dunedin, at an estimated cost of from £30,000 to £IOO,OOO, and the reticulation of intervening districts together with the delivery of power to the Canterbury centre. Details of Payment*

An analysis of the costs already incurred afc the headworks gives an interesting insight into the manner in which the total outlay has been expended. Preliminary borings, surveys and investigations absorbed a sum of £26,000, or 1.1 per cent of the'total cost. The most important work, of course, was the erection of the dam and the expenditure on this, including the addition of the cut-off wall as advised by Professor Hornell, amounted to £1,088,580, or 45.2 per cent of the total outlay. The power house building, with the large intake attached to it for the handling of the water for the turbines, cost £428,550, or 19 per cent of the total cost, and to this *>i»a to be added an additional sum of £195,078, or 8.7 per cent of the total, for electrical installations and equipment inside, or attached to, the power house. This amount includes the two turbines which are now in operation. When the works are operating at capacity there will be another three turbines, the installation of which. wiL. involve, with all the necessary transformers, as much again as has already been spent on the power house equipment. Establishment of Township The tailrace was erected at a cost of £53,835, or 2.9 per cent of the total, while the establishment, construction and appointment of the township of Awakino, or Waitaki Hyde®. as is is better known, cost no less than £25,400. Land to the value of £20,000 had to be purchased, and, consequent on the flooding of a considerable section of what is known as the old Slip Road, which was the only means o£ access to two stations on the Canterbury side of the river, road deviations, reconstruction and bndge-buiTdrag had to be carried out to the tuna- of £29.360, or 1.3 per cent of the total cost. This sum includes the cost of the handsome Waitangj Bridge, erected a& a cost of, £15,000, about five miles above the site of the dam to provide a means of crossing the river. With approximately £380,000 spent on transmission lines to date* and with the cost of the work that is still in progress on and around the dam, tiw actual total has now reached £2,297,000. Umplcymaat for Mas? 3£ea The Waitaki. project^has given employment to hundreds of raten, the numbers during the past six years varying from a rnrnrmTrm of 500 to a maximum of 1230. The indirect employment resulting from such an undertaking cannot easily be gauged, hot the fact that 45,000 tons of cement, costing £300.000, 4.000,000 superficial feet of timber and 40,000 tons of other goods have been used is the erection of the ejfi.m, gives soma idea of the widespread character of the effect such operations must have on trade and commerce generally.