Should Not Have Allowed the Drift

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 148, 13 September 1927, Page 15

Should Not Have Allowed the Drift

ARAPUNI DELAY GOVERNMENT CENSURED • I do not say who is to blame, but j someone lias been very lax in connecl tion with Arapuni,” said Mr. W. JHolds worth, chairman of the Auckland Power Board, at the Karangahape Business Promotion Society's lunch to-day. It had been known IS months ago that the foundations for the power house there were not suitable. The Government and the contractor had arrived at a deadlock and were now talking of going to law. As the Government was losing £150,000 a year by the delay the parties should have got together. The Government should not have allowed the thing to drift as it had. The delay at Arapuni had been very serious. The Government had proposed to marshall all the small plants in the province. Recently it had had to ask the board for 300 h.p. to pump a mine in Tauranga. The trouble had been that the Public Works Department had been at variance within itself. Mr. Holdsworth had seen the Minister and assured him that his fife would not be worth living if the primary' producers were held up from a shortage of power. The Public Works engineer’s suggestion was that the position could easily be overcome by' the board curtailing the peak load to the big commercial consumer. The board had also been faced with the notification of the Slack Pool Association of the coal-miine owners that it would have to buy face coal in the future. The Government had also compelled the board to put down the Penrose to King’s Wharf cable three years before it would be of any use. It had cost £120,000 to lay it, and it would be underground for three .years, at a cost of about £30,000. That was not a commercial proposition. The Government expected to find a use for it but would not meet the board in the cost. REMARKABLE GROWTH As illustrating the remarkable development of the Power Board, Mr. Holdsworth stated that in 1912 there were 880 consumers, in 1916 there were 2,023, and in 1920 there. were 4,113. In 1922 the board had been constituted and the number of consumers had risen from 16,342 in 1924 to an anticipated total of 45,000 to 46,000 at the end of the present year. The board was using 37,200 h.p. and serving an area of 300 square miles with a population of 200,000. When finally water power was harnessed the King’s Wharf plant would be a good insurance against stoppage. It would be converted to burn oil, so that it could be got under way in five or six minutes.