FAIRLIE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20509, 29 August 1936, Page 3

FAIRLIE

TEKAPO VILLAGE NATIONAL RESERVE SUGGESTED On behalf of the Mackenzie County Council, the engineer, Mr D. Jeune, has issued a statement on the development of Lake Tekapo in order to show the public generally and all local bodies concerned the value of the tourist and health asset that would be lost should the proposals for damming the lake be put into effect by the Public Works Department. Recently the Council obtained information to the effect that in order to carry out the scheme connected with the Waitaki Hydro, it was proposed to place a dam in the Tekapo river about a mile below the lake, which would raise the lake level by 30 or 40 feet. Such a dam would put Tekapo village under water. Full surveys of the land surrounding the lake have not yet been mad?, the report states, and when they are, they may show the compensation involved to be costly enough to make the Department alter its plans. “From a national viewpoint, no steps should be taken to prevent hydro-electric development, but there is another viewpoint that no steps should be taken which if any alternative can be found, would wipe out or spoil other national assets. There is an alternative at Tekapo. Instead of raising Tekapo 30 or 40 feet, each of the three lakes, Tekapo, Pukaki and Ohau could be raised from 12 to 14 feet.’”

A plea is made in the report .or united action in South Canterbury to save Tekapo for all time. “It is felt that South Canterbury should unite and save Tekapo by having all the land say, above a 14 contour lake level, declared a national reservation held in trust for the nation. Anything short of this will not bind the ’powers that be’ and prevent them from on some future date, waiving aside any tentative present-day agreement.”

A summary of what has been done* at Tekapo is also provided by Mr Jeune. Tekapo village was subdivided into village sections and offered for sale by the Land and Surveys Department. Over 40 sections were offered and readily taken up, and many subsequently changed hands at a substantial figure. Further sections are wanted and it is safe to predict that should more be offered for sale, they will be readily taken up. The site is practically the only flat land available for a village, and no amount of compensation will fully compensate for the loss of the area.

Some 27 acres had been sub-divided and some 40 acres of flat land remained available for village subdivision. The whole of the sections and the additional 40 acres would be lost if the lake was raised as suggested. The present camping ground at Tekapo was visited by a great crowd of motorists and though other camping grounds would no doubt be found, it was difficult to visualise a ground in any way comparable with the present site in the county plantation which, of course, would be lost under water.

The new sport of ice skating, which as yet was only in its infancy, attracted some hundreds from all parts of Canterbury during the winter weekends, and here again it was difficult to see where a suitable site for a rink could be found above the suggested level. The anglers’ paradise at Lake Alexandrina would be lost for all time. Medical men regarded Tekapo as one of the “lungs” of South Canterbury, and whatever inducement it was that attracted people to Tekapo for a weekend or a day’s outing, should be regarded as worthy of being maintained.

The Mackenzie County Council was concerned at the suggested rise in lake level, apart from the loss of several of its public works of some magnitude, by the additional fact that its almost matured plantation at Tekapo would be ru’’’~-'d. The uncertainty of the future made it difficult to form a planting programme. Part of the Tekapo plantation was planted before 1898 and the value of the early foresight of those who planted the area was being realised to-day. “When the above facts become known,” the report concludes, “it is felt that the people of South Canterbury will support the reservation proposal and that the movement now commenced will be finalised in a nation trust.”