DELAY AT ARAPUNI

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 183, 24 October 1927, Page 9

DELAY AT ARAPUNI

Contractors Blame Government

LITIGATION FOR FINAL ADJUSTMENT

LITIGATION seems inevitable,” said Mr. A. Whitley, attorney and chief representative in New Zealand for Armstrong Whitworth, Ltd., who arrives in Auckland to-day, and who charges the Government with failure to supply accurate data about the underlying formation at the Arapuni powerhouse site, where costly delay has occurred.

THE contractors have issued a statement in reply to the remarks of Mr. F. W. Furkert, Public Works en-gineer-in-chief, who in his annual report blamed the contractors for failure to deal adequately with the difficulties encountered on the job. The site chosen for the power-house is in the bed of the river. A slice has been hewn from the wall of the gorge, but the engineers have found that the underlying rock is too soft to give a firm foundation for the power-house as planned. As a contributing difficulty, serious flooding has been experienced. For these developments the contractors, in Mr. Whitley’s statement, decline to shoulder the blame. They assert that the Government commission which investigated the scheme failed to make a thorough examination of the site of the power-house, and that the attitude of the Government will lead the company to seek redress in courts of law. Abnormal Flooding "It is a pity,” said Mr. Whitley, “that Mr. Furkert made such statements as he has at the present time, the more so because they are misleading and unfair. As negotiations have been in progress for some time, the company has refrained from publicly discussing the situation.

“Mr. Furkert has said the contractors have lately made substantial progress on No. 1 section of the contract, the construction of the dam, but to an impartial observer it must he apparent that, having regard to the. abnormal floods of the past two years, the progress with this work has been wonderfully good. “With regard to No. 2 section of the contract, which includes the powerhouse, Mr. Furkert is perfectly well aware that the main cause of the delay has been that the ground for the foundations has been found to be wholly different from that which was contemplated and described in the specifications. The trouble may be traced back to the fact that the commission which examined the foundations for the dam in 1921 did not examine the foundations for ■ the powerhouse. Nevertheless, it made a definite statement about the power-house foundations, -as though it had examined them. Tell-Tale Borings “In the specifications for the contract the statement was made that under a layer of talus would be found rock of moderate hardness, hut borings which have been made to a depth of 263 ft below river level over the whole of the site have failed to

reveal rock of moderate or any degree of hardness. All that has been found is soft, tuffaceous beds. The contractors feel that the ground disclosed is of such a nature that they cannot take the responsibility for its stability, and that the whole position is so different from that outlined in the specifications as to make the construction of the power-house a totally new proposition. “When the difficulties were discovered, they were brought to the notice of the Government, hut the Government has considered them to be the contractors’ responsibility and has refused to meet them in any manner or even to discuss a rearrangement of the work which the contractors feel would be less insecure, much more expeditious and much less costly. “The contractors evolved a scheme for solving the difficulty .by erecting the control station on the hillside about fifty yards from the powerhouse. There would thus be less building on the weak foundation, and the power-house itself could be built nearer the solid cliff, and further from the river. Unfortunately, the Government has refused to consider this modification of the scheme, and although the contractors have made every possible effort to avert litigation, and solve the difficulties, the Government’s attitude seems to make Mitigation inevitable.”