MIGHTY WATER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 39, 17 October 1923, Page 2

MIGHTY WATER.

HARNESSING THE WAIKATO

GREAT ARAPUNI SCHEME

The preliminaries for the great Arapuni hydro-electrical scheme, whence the Auckland and Taranaki provinces are to receive their main supply oi electric power as from li)2b, are now being actively prosecuted by the Public Works Department. THE ACCESS ROAD.

Located on the Waikato River, nine miles from the liotorua railway, at Putaruru, the Arapuni Gorge in the past has been accessible only over settlers' roads, which are fairly steep in places. One of the first steps, therefore, was to provide good access to the Gorge, and a first-class metal road on easv grades throughout is being constructed. A total of £28,000 is being spent on this work, of which £17,000 has been voted for the current financial year. For the first 2* miles or so from the Putaruru station the route adopted is tho present local road, thence an entirely new road is being made to tho Gorge. Tho 2* miles referred to are already mostly metalled, with soft rock—tho local rhyohte —and one firm of contractors is now busily engaged finishing off with King Country shingle. Of tho new deviation a good length has already been completed in one contract, and another has been let for the sanding of this, while a further contract, covering the formation of the hast portion, is m hand. In addition, a number of bridges have to be erected to give proper crossings over streams en route. Suitable local shingle for metalling tho now formation has been found nearby, and quarrymen have been put on to make it available. As soon as properly consolidated, the new formation will be metalled with this, and on the completion of the bridges the now road will bo an actuality. This should bo in about four or five months' time, as in February next tenders for the first and main portion of the Arapuni scheme, namely, the erection of tho headworks, close, and then it should not bo long before the successful tenderer will commence transporting over the road tho enormous amount of material that lie will require in the way of machinery, cement, etc. HOUSES FOR THE STAFF. At the dam si.to itself meanwhile, too, preliminary work in the form of the erection of residences, etc., for the permanent officials is in hand. A house for the resident engineer, Mr. Rabone, was completed some days ago, and tenders, returnable this week, are now called for the erection of three more cottages and a set of offices. ELECTRICITY FOR ELECTRICITY. And surely the day of electricity has come, for tho installation of this great electric-power scheme is to be done mainly by electricity. From Horahora, the "baby" scheme some miles down stream, n. power line has been duly erected right to tho Arapuni dam site, and thence thrown across the gorge, and down stream a short way to tho power-house site. From this line tho power for working the excavating machines, concrete mixers, etc., will be obtained, and the necessary transformer for tho purpose was carted out to the site this week. THE BIG CONCEPTION.

Thus is the Department preparing for the great clay, when the contract shall have been let, and this mighty Waikato River, racing in mad riot of unharnessed strength through this deep gorge of rock-bound beetling cliffs 150 feet high and lightly clad with bush, shall find suddenly opening against it on the east side a diversion tunnel of big proportions, which, too, has already been commenced. This will conduct the river under the cliff'and round and out again, leaving the site for the dam dry. Then is to arrive this gigantic dam broad at the base and tapering at the top, but moulded literally on a curve, presenting a breast upstream. Honeycombed lightly with vertical and lateral tunnels—in order that examinations may be made of it throughout at any time—it will thus also embody a miniature mine bet in concrete, while the top will comprise a solid conctete roadway, 17 feet wide, giving a great new highway, creasing at this part of the river, and bringing country such as Maungatuutari, I'ukeatua, Wharepuhunga, etc., now sparsely settled, owing to their remoteness from the Main Trunk Railway, into easy distance of tho iiotorua railway uo Puiaruru. This phase is keenly appreciated by the settlejk's concerned, wlio, within the last fortnighthave held a conference with their county councillors, county engineer, and public works engineer, to arrange tor readings from their territories to eon~ nect with the dam crossing and thence to Putaruru.

Then, the dam duly completed, the river will bo shut back on to its original course, and striking this impenetrable barrier, will gradually rise up on it, hacking its waters for 18 miles and forming a long lake that in its turn will give good water access to another great stretch of partially-de-veloped Upper Waikato country. Finally, near the top of tho dam the waters will find their new—but strangely old —outlet in the form of jm old course on the western bank at the top of the gorge, whore, scientists tell us, tho river used centuries ago to run before. This takes a lino away from the gorge at first, but further down returns to the river site. Somewhere about midway along an overflow weir will be encountered, this giving a ''head" over tunnels leading downward through the intervening ground out to a gorge again at a spot where a kind of terraee will accommodate tho power-house. The mighty rush of water down these tunnels will bo the force that will operate the generating machinery, evolving tho electricity that is to provide power, light and heat for home and industry throughout the great and progressing provinces of Auckland and Taranuki. Such then, is a layman's conception of tiiis great scheme, as formed from descriptions given oil the ground by the experts. And as the Government has contracted with the Auckland Power Board to supply electricity to Auckland by 1928 from Arapuni, a galaxy of interest will apply to the next four years' of hydro-electric science, for not only is the Arapuni scheme several times larger than any other hydro-electrical scheme in the Dominion, but it possesses distinctive features that will make it a solcudid tu..mp.i of man's ingenuity in the utilisation of the m«ghty forces of Nature for his own benefit.