WEST COAST POWER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22629, 18 January 1937, Page 11

WEST COAST POWER

LINE OVER RANGES SURVEY WORK PROCEEDING ESTIMATED COST OF £165,000 [by telegraph—OWN correspondent] CHRISTCHURCH, Saturday It is expected that it will riot be long before the Public "Works Department is in a position to have work started on the construction of the highpower transmission line connecting the AYest C'oast with the Lake ColoridgeWaitaki generating system. Three survey parties have been working for months on the necessary surveys, and although no indication can yet be given of the date they will complete their task, it is stated officially that they have made excellent progress. Apparently once the difficult section over the ranges in the Arthur's Pass area is completed, the survey itself will be virtually finished and plans and specifications will be ready for drawing up. The scheme, which will cost approximately £160.000, is one of the most ambitious of its kind undertaken in the Dominion. The line, entering the high country near Cass, must cross over mountains and wide rivers, and then down the precipitous countryside into the West Coast, where the power it will carry will work big gold dredges and art the same time augment the existing commercial and domestic supply there. In time, it is visualised, the line will supply power for the whole of a highly productive area from South Westiand to the Buller. A double circuit 66,000volt line will cross the mountains, via Cass, Arthur's Pass and Otira, carrying power which AYest C'oast people expect will play the major part in one of the biggest gold-dredging booms in the history of the Dominion. The transmission line will pass almost exactly over the Otira tunnel, and its proximity to Arthur's Pass has led to the suggestion that the power could bo used for the tunnel. This development is being seriously considered by the authorities, it- is stated, for although it would necessitate abandoning the power station at Arthur's Pass, the use of the Coleridge-Waitaki power would be more economical. The present generating plant at the Pass would be used as a stand-bv.