MANGAHAO

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18974, 27 March 1924, Page 4

MANGAHAO

On Tuesday, at the instigation of the Manawatu-Oroua Electric Power Board, a combined visit of inspection was paid to Mangahao. The guests of the organising board included representatives of the Wanganui-Rangitikei Electric Power Board, the Palmerston North Borough Council, the Feilding Borough Council, the Oroua County Council, and the member for Wanganui, besides a number of private visitors. In referring editorially to the visit, the Manawatu Times says that this official inspection proved a revelation in the art of overcoming engineering difficulties

that to’ a layman would appear wellnigh. insurmountable. Inexorable fate has played a big part in the delay in completion of various works necessary to the. scheme, but the luck would appear to have changed. Arapeti has to all extents and purposes been conquered, and the work is going" forward at such a rapid rate of progress that the dam should be ready within the stipulated three months. Mangahao is still a formidable proposition, but no serious difficulty is anticipated in finishing off this great dam-with its estimated storage capacity of five hundred million gallons. The reserve storage reservoir, with a capacity of 650,000,000 gallons, is a future work, which will not in any way retard the turningon of the current on schedule. Even if the main dam at Mangahao is not finally completed, the end of August should see sufficient progress to guarantee the flooding of the 80 chains’ tunnel which will All the Arapeti dam and give it the necessary water for generating the first supply of electric current. The enormous amount of work done by Mr. A. Dinnie, the Public Works Engineer-in-Charge, has been accomplished with that degree of patience common to all men who do great things, and do them well. He has a reputation for getting the best possible results out of his men, and visitors could not be anything but deeply impressed with the zeal and zip put into their jobs by the hundreds of men employed on this great national undertaking.