POWER BOARD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 13 July 1929, Page 11

POWER BOARD

At the regular meeting of the Golden Bay Electric Power Board held on Tuesday the consulting engineer reported as follows: —

Head works.—With the exception of the fore bay, the reconditioning of the water race has been completed. Probably in a Tew places fho old banks will require building up a little. Excavation of rock on the pipe lino has been almost completed. The pipes arrived a fortnight ago, but a start could not be made with their erection until a special grant for the pipe bridge cam© to hand a few ,davs ago. Tt. is expected to complete to-morrow the launching of the pipes across the river to form pipe bridge. It is hoped in about ten working days to complete the jointing up of the pipes. Temporary arrangements will be made while the fore hay is being constructed to divert water from the race into the pipes and thereby provide sufficient power to dry out the generator and also the main transformer. —Generating Plant: The main transformer has not arrived yet, though the makers advised that it would arrive &irly this month. A considerable

amount of wiring on tho switchgear,has been carriod out.—Transmission Line: Owing to bad weather tlie contractors have been much delayed in the work of erecting llie cables from the power sta-> lion lo town. With tho exception of tho river spans (lie cable has been run out and some of it strained up and bound iu. Tho Post and Telegraph Department have sanctioned the livening up Ibis section. Similar.approval is awaiting from the Public Works Department. —Pole erection : Good progress is now being made with this work following a delay through had weather, ll is expected that the poles will ho eroded as far a.s Pohara {this week.—Earthquake Damage: The earthquake On the 17th June caused 110 damage to the lieadwoj*ks. ll is remarkable tluit not even a hair crack can lie seen in the 350 yards of concrete ■ (luining. The point where tho water race junctions witli the pipe line was shaken and it is advisable lo extend the concrete fore bay about half a chain up the race. It is fortunate that the pipe line was not erected. as i( would probably have suffered some damage. Several of the concrete poles were shaken off the stack in the yard and cracked. A few meters were similarly damaged. Some bad cracks have appeared in the floor of the office and store, and llm whole building appears to have been tilted to the northeast, as the water spouting has reversed its (low in that direction.—Service Poles: It is proposed to cut from the neighbourhood of the head race as many yellow pine poles as can lie obtained, and bring them down tho aerial rope as soon as possible. * The engineer-manager reported as follows

House Wiring.—Tho wiring contractor (Mr W. K. Lane) has at present six men employed on house wiring, progress lo date being very satisfactory. Twentyfive installations have already been wired'and it is estimated that there will he between 130 and 150 installations ready for connection to tlie mains by the lime power is turned on. During the above period the canvasser hag not been able to devote very much time to canvassing, on account of being fully occupied upon construction work at tho power house. Tlie motors for milking plants are due to arrive very shortly, when ii start will be made on wiring up consumers who have signed for this service. During the month a rebate of 5 per cent, was offered to consumers for prompt payment, and to date consumers have freely taken advantage of this concession. Messrs Glasgow and Rout are still negotiating with the Treasury in reference to obtaining authority for bank overdraft, and it is hoped that authority will be forthcoming very shortly. Application has also been made lo the Loans Board for authority to harness tho left branch of Campbell’s creek, but as yet no reply has been received.—Consumers’ Lines: At the present moment there seems to be a little misunderstanding amongst consumers in regard to the extra cost involved for service lines. The regulations state that the supply authority must erect tliei first chain of line on a consumer’s properly free of charge. This method work s satisfactorily in tho ma.joriy of cases where consumers are handy to the main lipo; but in cases where the consumer is distant from the road a hardship is somotime s created, and the installation of electric power rejected. I would recommend that the Board consider charging tlie consumer in this case a' proportion of tho cost of the line for installation of lines for motors and ranges. In order to secure the business several boards have adopted thi s practice.

EARTHQUAKE AND FLOOD Earth tremors are still being felt here and occasionally a greater shake, but they are now becoming less frequent and at longer intervals. Also at times heavy detonations are to be heard. The sound seems to come from out at sea, m the direction of Farewell Spit. Notwithstanding the severe visitation which caused so much havoc here, the district experienced a severe storm on Saturday night last and heavy rain fell which caused a serious flood. It is reported that the height of the flood was practically as high as the highest experienced in the district three years ago. Fences were washed down. One farmer reports the loss of twelve cows and also others have suffered in a like manner, together with the .loss of stock an*l damage generally to fences and property. Three farm properties in the vicinity of the Anatoki river are practically covered with silt about two, feet deep and the road in this locality is completely edvered and only the tops of the fences on either side of what used to be the road can now be seen.

The flood was at its highest on Sunday morning at 10.30, which fortunately allowed some of the farmers in the flooded area to recover some of their stock or get them out of danger. A portion of the bridge over the GoAhead creek was washed away and the roads have been considerably damaged with wash-outs and silt deposits. Some hundreds of thousands of feet of timber are now lying about. This was brought down by tbe flood and a great number of tbe logs have been stripped clean of bark, apparently caused by the force of the flood water during passage from the rocky gullies and creeks higher up the Anatoki valley. No doubt a lot of this debris and timber was shaken down or loosened by the earthquake. Telephone communication to Nelson was cut oil. caused through the storm, but is now restored. The Collingwood-Takaka road was blocked by flood until the following Monday.