HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 71, 17 December 1917, Page 18

HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER

A WAIRARAPA SCHEME.

A committee of progressive representative men in the town of Masterton were commissioned by a conference of WaJ bodies called bv the Chamber of

Commerce a little timo ago to discover, without aid from tlio Government or any public institution, whether it would be possible to develop electric power for the district by harnessing any of the streams in the neighbourhood. On this worlc the committee expended the sum of £500. Two engineers have had the investigations in hand, and both of them have said that the best stream in the district is the Waiohine River. Their interim reports havo been received, and they are somewhat favourable. These reports are still under consideration. It is hoped that by yoking up this river it will he possible to develop enough power to supply the whole of the Wairarapa Valley with cheap current. Ono part of the scheme is to supply the meat works with power and light.. The scheme has been the more in favour in recent times owing to the great difficulty and uncertainty in obtaining .coal. The supplies of coal have been so precarious at times lately as to _cause considerable embarrassment in the carrying on of industrialenterprises, and even for domestic purposes there lias more than once been a fear of failure of supplios. _ After the war, when labour and material are available, it is safe k to say that the people of Wairarapa' will enddavour by some means to get the money to establish this hydro-electric scheme.