460,000 Tons Of Metal In Contract For Tongariro

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 62, 10 August 1965, Page 1

460,000 Tons Of Metal In Contract For Tongariro

Nearly a million tons of metal aggregate will be used in two sections of the huge # Tongariro power development. In an announcement yesterday, a spokesman for Ministry of Works said the first contract for 460,000 tons would be let out to tender shortly and a similar amount would be required for a second stage of the scheme.

In a series of meetings between Ministry of Works, the Waikato Valley Authority, the Taupo County Council, the Internal Affairs Department and Lands and Survey Department, metal supplies for the scheme have been surveyed and plans made to obtain them from areas which will do least damage to hunting, fishing and soil stability. At a meeting last week the groups agrecd to terms and conditions for the supply of metal on a major coutract of 460,000 tons of both fine and coarse aggregate. This will come from a site west of Lake Rotoaira near the Otouku School — which the MoW is to moye to a new site away from the heavy traffie which will use the road. The contract will be used to supply the needs of the western diversion and the

Rotoaira side of the Tokaanu three-tunnel section of the scheme. A similar amount will probably be required for the other side of the tunnel which runs through the range of hills behind Tokaanu and for the powerhouse and tail-race section of the Tokaanu scheme. It has not been announced where supplies of metal for this section will come from, but large deposits have been surveyed and ear-marked for use in various parts of the scheme. The tonnage referred to above would amount to some 400,000 cubic yards of metal — believed to be the biggest contract of its kind put out to tender in the Taupo area. .