Horahora Station Again Closed Down

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 327, 12 April 1928, Page 1

Horahora Station Again Closed Down

DEBRIS BLOCKS SCREENS

AUCKLAND POWER AFFECTED

Ever since the recent fall of earth and rock at the new waterfall in the Waikato River at Arapuni, huge quantities of rubbish have been washed into the screens at the Horahora powerhouse, resulting last evening in the partial closing-down of the plant so that the turbine inlet could be cleared of debris. rpHE stoppage at Horahora, which is the second since the beginning of the year, affected the supply to Auckland, and necessitated the Auckland Power Board feeding back the power from the King’s Wharf station to the district usually supplied from the hydro plant below Arapuni.

The full extent of the trouble cannot be determined until the screens are cleared and the turbines examined, but if the blockage is on a scale with that wffiich occurred in January, the turbines will have to be overhauled and cleared of pumice deposits. In this event a fairly long stoppage might result. "Week-end adjustments at the power house have frequently reduced the load which the Auckland Power Board has received from Horahora, and for some time the supply has not been anything in the vicinity of the 2,000 kilowatts contracted for. When the load fell, the deficiency, of course, had to be supplemented by the King’s Wharf supply, which embarrassed the board’s domestic arrangements and taxed its power resources.

This state of affairs at Horahora confirms the belief that some time will elapse before normality is reached in the diverted river, which is still cutting inroads —-however slight—into the countryside below the Arapuni construction. The remedy, as the authorities see it, is merely to continue cleaning Horahora screens, immediately they become choked, until the natural course of the river has settled, and the w'aters have worn a more or less solid bed through the fiat country above the screens.