LAKE TAUPO

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 1127, 7 May 1945, Page 2

LAKE TAUPO

THE NEW DAM , VENTURE A SUCCESS "We did not set out to raise the level of Lake Taupo, but to convert the lake ino a storage tank to regulate the rate of flow of the Waikato River," said Mr A. C. Caldwell, district electrical engineer, Works Department, Hamilton, in an address to the Hamilton Rotary Club. The level of the lake had been raised, but tha£ was incidental to the main purpose. Before control was applied the rate of flow varied between 3000 and 7000 cubic feet a second, he added. With the operation of the dam, a minimum flow of 5000 and a maximum of 10,000 cubic feet a second could be obtained. It had been expected that two years would elapse after the completion of the dam before the lake' was filled, but heavy and continuous rain fell immediately after the work was done and the waters rose rapidly. This was a very fortunate circumstance. Control was commenced in September, 1941, and conditions had been favourable ever since. Mr Caldwell'described the dam at Taupo as the only one of its kind in New Zealand. There was no rock bed and the foundations rested on pumice. The dam .was built at a cost of £50,000. It had already paid for itself in the value of the water it had conserved and the extra electricity that had been generated.