Need For Maniototo Irrigation Reiterated

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 21

Need For Maniototo Irrigation Reiterated

Bitter criticism of the Government’s attitude to the proposed irrigation scheme in the Maniototo area of Central Otago was voiced by members of the South Island Local Bodies’ Association at an executive meeting in Christchurch yesterday.

Mr P. J. Scott, representing several Otago local bodies, said the latest report of a committee appointed by the Government to investigate the scheme did nothing more than recommend that another committee be established to investigate. “It is a shame and a disgrace that this has been allowed to drag on for so long and nothing done,” he said.

Mr Scott said he had pleaded with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Tai boys) not to appoint another committee. Only two of the delegates at the meeting said they had seen copies of the report. The chairman of the land committee (Mr M. Wallace, Westland) asked why the Minister had not sent a copy to the association.

At the request of the Government committee, Mr Wallace had made submissions on the Maniototo scheme. He said the association had been pressing for irrigation development of the Maniototo area for several years, and the project had first been mooted more than 50 years ago.

Irrigation is sought in the area to intensify production on about 50,000 acres of land which is claimed to be ideally suited for such development. Mr Wallace said the seventh largest river in New Zealand flowed past the area, but was not being used while the land had a carrying capacity of a mere one sheep to the acre.

Mr Wallace challenged the spending of £4 million on the Mangaweka by-pass near Taihape when projects of important national development went undone.

“1 wonder how much the Mangaweka project will add to overseas funds. It just makes my blood boil,” he said.

Mr Wallace said he saw tens of thousands of acres of land on both sides of the Southern Alps begging to be developed to their fullest production. “This goes on while we have it drummed into us night and day the importance of increasing animal production. This association should take its courage in both hands and urge the Government to go out and get land instead of waiting for it to be offered. I am not suggesting that the price paid should not be a just one."

Mr Wallace claimed that the high concentration of the national population in the North Island was because of the amount of money spent by the Government there on farming and forestry projects.

There were more possibilities of land development throughout the South Island than was generally realised.

Mr G. Harris (Temuka) agreed with Mr Wallace and said vast tracts of land in the South Island were being put out of production by hydro-electric projects. He cited the loss of thousands of acres of land in the Waitaki valley submerged by the Benmore project while as much if not more land in the MacKenzie country was “screaming out for water.” “If we are going to do our duty to a starving world,” he said, “we will have to go about it in a more forthright way.”

Commenting on the Maniototo scheme, the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr G. Manning) said everything he had heard about it had been favourable. “We should ask for a copy of the report so that we will know what to do next. We have fathered this scheme for years,” he said. Mr E. L. Whittelston warned that unless the association took smart action on the Maniototo scheme it might as well be forgotten. The estimated cost of establishing an irrigation scheme in the Maniototo area is £3 million. When it was mooted 50 years ago the cost was ; less than £500,000. The association decided to ask the Minister of Agricui- . ture for a copy of the report lon the scheme.