Benmore 35 Per Cent. Completed

Press, Volume C, Issue 29509, 10 May 1961, Page 16

Benmore 35 Per Cent. Completed

(New Zealand Press Association)

OAMARU, May 9. The Benmore power project up to April this year had cost £8.5 million. The scheme was more than 35 per cent, complete with the tempo of work increasing on all phases, said the project engineer (Mr J. W. Ridley) yesterday, in answer to inquiries. Benmore, in the year to April, 1959, cost £l.B million with the emphasis that year on the establishment of construction buildings and industrial services. On the project site work was confined almost solely to the excavation of the diversion channel on the left' bank of the Waitaki river. By the end of the next year the total spent on the project was £4.8 million with establishment work well under way, the diversion culvert approaching completion, major excavation work going ahead on the spillway and intake sites, and excavation for and construction of the main earth dam progressing well, up to the edge of the right river bank. Last year £3.7 million was spent and during this period

the diversion of the river was completed, additional earth moving equipment was purchased, work on the spillway and intake blocks started, and the carrying of material from the borrow area to the main dam was speeded up. An estimate of work done today shows. — Diversion of the Waitaki river complete, enabling the extension of the main dam workings across the old river bed and over the top of the diversion culvert. Establishment (village and industrial area construction. purchasing of mechanical plant, etc.), 95 per cent, complete. Construction of earth dam 25 per cent complete. Construction of intake block, penstocks and powerhouse 10 per cent, complete.