HYDRO-ELECTRIC WORKS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19122, 17 September 1936, Page 10

HYDRO-ELECTRIC WORKS

£764,000 TO BE SPENT OPERATION COSTS £187,000 LITTLE FOR WAIKAREMOANA (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. 'I here is no intention on the part of the Government to prosecute at pre-sent-the scheme adopted by the previous holders of the Treasury benches for extending the utility of tlie Waikaremoana hydro-electric • works by artificial control of the outflow from the lake. Little more than expenses uud maintenance are provided in tlie Public, Works Estimates in connection with, the East Coast power-production system, which, of course, is now linked with Maugahao for the supply of electricity to the lower half of the North Island as well as for Poverty Bay. .lit till, the estimates provide for tin expenditure of £7(54,000 of new money on hydro-electrical projects during the year, of which £533,900 is for new materials and new works. Most of the £533,900 will be absorbed by the Ara-puni-Horahora scheme, the balance being about sufficient to furnish the new materials required for the Mangahao section of the North Island system as a whole.

Bettiils of the votes are given under headings which make it difficult to analyse the items, the chief difficulty being the lumping together ,of Ara* puni and Horahora in the one instance, and Waikaremoana and Mangahao in the other, while in the South Island Lako Coleridge and Waitaki also are dealt with in a combined vote.

The figures shown in the estimates are as under: —

New works and purchases of matcri als for stock: Arapuni-Horaliora works, £400,000; Mangahao-Waikare-moana works, £130,000; Lake Cole-ridgo-Waitaki works, £120,000. Working expenses and maintenance: Arapuni-Horahora works, £75,000; Mangahao-Waikaremoana wprks, £75,000; Lako Coleridge-Waitaki works, £05,000. An additional item included in the estimates covers half the additional net cost of operating King’s wharf station at Auckland and half the capital charges on the station, the total being £37,000, or nearly half the cost of operating and maintaining Mangahao , and Waikaremoana together. That the Public Works Department has not yet given up the idea of promoting further water-power schemes for electrical purposes is indicated by a vote of £BOO for surveys and investigations of other schemes.