"REASON FOR CONCERN"

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 762, 7 September 1929, Page 1

"REASON FOR CONCERN"

Erosion at Arapuni

POWER BOARDS OBSERVATIONS ‘••THE board is greatly concerned with what it saw at I Arapuni.” said Mr. W. J. Holdsworth, chairman of the Auckland Electric-Power Board, to a Sun representative this morning. “I am going to Wellington on Tuesday to press upon the Minister of Public Works the need for the utmost urgency in pushing on with the preventive works.”

Mr Holdsworth and members of the Power Board have just returned from ~ yjait to Arapuni, where they infracted the damage caused by erosion. •'lt seems inevitable that the river UE t be diverted and the power house Hosed down until repairs are effected,” .aid Mr. Holdsworth. “Our great concern is that this should be done before the winter, when there will be a heavy demand ,or power, Mr. Holdsworth also said that the real extent of the damage and the amount of work required would not be known until the river was diverted. It was essential that Uvs should be done as early as possible.

What has happened down there has proved conclusively the tricky nature of the country. It is hard to tell from one day to the other what will happen. Mr. Holdsworth said that if the repair work were carried out during the summer, the board, with its own plant working to full capacity, could carry on with Horahora, with assistance from Waihi, Tauranga and the Government’s diesel plant at Penrose. During the summer months we will also be able to assist other districts at times when we are not on our peak load, but in the winter we will need all the power we can get.