WAIKAREMOANA SCHEME.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13786, 11 September 1915, Page 9

WAIKAREMOANA SCHEME.

HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER.

The Mayor of Hastings (Mr W. Hart) has received from Hon. R. McNab, M.P. for Hawke's Bay, iii answer to his (the Mayor's) application as to when the hydro-electric power from Lake Waikaremoana would be taken m hand, so that Hastings could be supplied, the following reply from the' Hon. Minister of Public Works : — "Re Mayor of Hastings inquiry, a scheme of development of water, sufficient to satisfy the general requirements of the North Island, is under consideration, and, under such a scheme, Hastings could be "served as well as other boroughs and districts. It has not yet, however, been finally dejtermined which would be the most advantageous scheme for development, and it requires considerably more, survey and field work, as well as estimating, before this question can be settled, and it is moreover premature to assume that the supply for Hastings, or for any other district, would of necessity come from Waikaremoana. Possibly, the Mayor of Hastings desires to know when the Government would be ready to supply the Borough of Hastings with power m bulk. If this be so I haye to state that it 'will, m any case, be at least three years before this result can be brought about, and the best advice which can be given to the Mayor is that the borough should, m the meantime, meet its immediate requirements by means of a fuel plant, which could afterwards, with much advantage, be used for standby purposes, m the event of any temporary failure of supply from a water power scheme. This is almost a necessity, owing to the liability of long transmission lines to interruption. The fuel plant could also be used m conjunction with a bulk supply from the Government with great * advantage to tho borough, and by means of which the annual cost to the borough could he reduced.