TO BE SUBMERGED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18975, 28 March 1924, Page 9

TO BE SUBMERGED

HISTORIC TOWNSHIP OF WAIPORI. DUNEDIN, March 26. Tso historical little township of Waipori, nestled in the hills behind the Taeiri Plain, will in the next ten years be totally submerged under a huge artificial lake which is to be formed, if the proposal of the Dunedin City Corporation to obtain statutory power to enlarge the dam at the Waipori Falls in connection with its electrical power scheme comes to fruition. In the days of the gold mining boom Waipori, now almost a deserted village, was a scene of activity with its population of over 2000 diggers and their wives. There were then many shops and stores, and in the main street were no fewer than nine hotels, where, as in mining camps, there were scenes of revelry by night. On Monday there were more people in Waipori than had been there for many years. It was not another influx of gold-seekers, but an attendance of the miners from about the place and of property-hol-ders in the town who had come to negotiate with representatives of the Citv Council in respect to the compensation which must be paid to the owner B whose claims and houses will be submerged by the water of the new lake. When the scheme proposed is completed the dam will he raised to a height of 110 feet and an area of 4500 acres will be flooded, forming an artificial lake over fifteen miles long.