THE REDCLIFF, WAITAKI NORTH, AND LOWER WAIHAO WATER RACE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2295, 19 December 1891, Page 4

THE REDCLIFF, WAITAKI NORTH, AND LOWER WAIHAO WATER RACE.

The first section, consisting of 16 £ miles, of a water-face from about 3 mile? above Redcliff,.was formally opened on Monday morning. At the invitation of the contractor (Mr Fletcher), and Messrs Mekßon and Marchant (the surveyors), a large company of gentlemen, numbering about 50, from all parts of the district, were at the ceremony, which began with the inspection of the head works and the following of the race for a mile and a-half to the.contractor's camp, where a splendid luncheon, provided by Mr Smart, of Waitaki North, was served at 1 o'clock. The race (says the North Otago, Times), which is not for purposes of irrigation, but merely for watering stock, miy at any time be so extended as to serve all- the purposes of irrigation of crops in dry seasons. It will be 100 miles in length when completed, and will cost £4500. It will water, an area of some

28,000 acres of the plains from Redcliff to , Waihao and Waitaki North, and settlers ' generally see in it a great boon for stock. The present contract completed is 15 J miles in length ; the second,which hasjust been let, will be 25 miles in length ; and the third is about 55 miles. The money has been borrowed by the Waimate County Council under the Loans to Local Bodies Act, at 5 per cent., and in 26 years tte payment of the whole cost (principal aid interest) will be made. The burden #lll not be heavy upon the settlers, as the rateable area is a large one. There is an i i-stauce, however, where one owner wno, h tviug dug wells and erected windmills, ha* objected to the water going through his property, and as it is necessary that t le rice should go through his ground to r jach others who desire the water beyond,

a nne land will require to be purchased, aiid this, it is calculated, will add to the

C>st of construction, but not very materially. Messrs' Meason and Marchant, the engineers and surveyors, have ' li id extensive experience in water-race engineering, and the whole of their plans having been in the hands of good * contractors have turned out satisfactorily. And under Mr Eletcher, who has had the constructing of nine water-races in Canterbury, the race under notice has been faithfully carried out. The intake is very different from the intake on the ooposite side, of the river made to supply Oaniaru. It consists of a box-kind of culvert thrust into the river several feet below the water's surface. In the end of the culvert in the river holes have been bjred, and having been fixed by strong iron standards, heaps of boulders have Won built iu a kind of fascine work over the culvert or filter-box, which leads into a concrete well some ] 5 or 20 yards from t ! ie bank. From this well opens an automatic sluice-gate, so constructed and balanced that the weight of water rushing in regulates the amount which passes through the well. That is to say, under tliis arrangement only a certain head of w.kter can flow into the open race, and if

t!ure is 'any increased prassure the ( i counterbalance weight' : -raises and clones the sluice gate. All danger of washing a vay the intake and flooding the race is therefore obviated. Messrs Measoti and Mirchant have, where practicable, adopted this kind of intake for all the jr t .ces they; have recently engineered. It Biiould perhaps bo mentioned that the work was begun in August, and up till r cently 41 men were employed upon it. After inspection of the race the compa i.y proceeded to Mr Fletcher's upper camp for luncheon. Among those present were Major 8 eward, (member for the district, and Speaker of the House of Representatives), Messrs T. Duncan and A. E. G. Rhodes, MH.R.'a, Parker, Meason and Marchant, (engineers to the Geraldine County Council), Jackson (clerk to the Wnimate County Council), Black (the overseer to the Wainaate County Council), Mason, (laejabtri at tig*

Temuka Town Board), Coltman (representing the Waimate Borough Council), Studholme, Douglas, Steward, Smart, Lane, Radford, Gaze, Philp, Sinclair, and others, in all between forty and fifty. A very long toast list was gone through, all the speakers animadverting on the great benefit that must accrue to the country from an extensive system of irrigation. . Reference was made to the good work done in the Geraldine County, where thero were about 600 miles of races. A high tribute was paid to the skill of Messrs Meason and Marchant in designing the work, and to the contractor, Mr W. Fletcher, for the way in which he had carried out his contract. All who were present appeared to heartily enjoy the outing.