LAKE COLERIDGE STATION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21088, 14 July 1938, Page 8

LAKE COLERIDGE STATION

To the Editor or " The Timaru Herald ’ Sir,—From Mr Semple himself, your correspondent, Mr A. Thomas, has now received “a reassuring statement concerning the threat to the Lake Coleridge power station.” My first letter indicated that the leakage did not warrant the hue and cry raised by the Minister of Public Works. Now Mr Semple has admitted that himself: “I am not now so afraid as I was at first, and it is evident that the danger is not quite so great as was feared," he has stated. In the face of the Minister’s second statement therefore, your correspondent will have difficulty in proving that the first was not unadulterated political propaganda. Moreover, if your correspondent had actively worked on the job at Lake Coleridge, he should have been aware that the engineers ‘ook great pains to trace the source of the leak from the adit; and they ijnew there were holes in the tunnel, or they would not have patched them. Yet, it was not definitely established that the leak was entirely due to faults in the tunnel. The main point of my letter however, was that Mr Semple's alarming statement was not merited, and he has now admitted that himself. As for ferro con-rete, it might have been used In Invercargill In 1900; but Ka.. Benz made and used a car in 1835, and even your correspondent should be able to realise that present-day models offer a number of advantages. When the tunnel was patched, as indicated by your correspondent, reinforced concrete was in existence, but it was not in general use when the tunnel was constructed. As for signing my name, your correspondent coulo be adv'sed to mind his own business, and furthei. that if he is unable to write without knowing the Identity of an opponent, he must be hopelessly short of facts.—l am, etc., EX P.W.D. WORKER. July 12.