WATER SUPPLY FOR CITY

Southland Times, Issue 25545, 13 December 1944, Page 4

WATER SUPPLY FOR CITY

LOKA AND DUNSDALE SCHEMES “The Lora proposal does not offer any advantage over the Dunsdale scheme, except in the greater elevation above the town and this would cause too great a pressure at times of low consumption unless measures to reduce it were taken,” stated the city engineer, Mr F. M. Corkill, in a special report on a proposal to supply the city with water from the Lora stream. The report was presented to the City Council at its meeting last night. At a recent meeting of the council Cr G. F. M. Stewart referred to this propasal as one that had been made many years ago and suggested that it would be worth investigating. In his report the engineer said that the Lora stream was one of the sources considered in the earliest days of Invercargill, being included in a report by G. Gordon in 1878. The Dunsdale had a catchment area of 14,000 acres, mostly bush, compared with 5600 acres, mostly in tussock, at Lora. The Dunsdale dam site was 272 feet above sea level and the Lora dam site 650 feet. The length of the pipe line from Dunsdale would be 25{- miles and the length of the pipe line from Lora 36 to 40 miles. The estimated reservoir capacity at Dunsdale was 75,000,000 gallons and at Lora 200,000,000 gallons. SERIOUS DISADVANTAGES The engineer considered that the serious disadvantages of the Lora scheme were: (1) The smallness of the catchment area; (2) the fact that the land was all clear and so without the benefit of conservation of moisture given by forest; (3) the fact that the land was mostly freehold and occupied. While the council had better tenure of a better area at Dunsdale it would require some other great advantage to outweigh these disabilities. However, he considered that the Lora proposal should be kept in view and all relative information collected and recorded in case it should be of value in the future. As a start Mr C. F. Overton, of Lora Station, had agreed to observe a rain gauge.