Response to Call this Urgent?
Brian O’Shea’s letter provides some great examples of what can be achieved by human endeavour and modern civil engineering. It is, however, somewhat rose-tinted. Sure, Lake Benmore power station took just six years to build but it’s worth pointing out all the plans were approved the year before and the land had already been purchased. It also predated the Resource Management Act, when grabbing a 75-square kilometre slice of New Zealand was a much simpler affair.
Likewise, the Manapouri power station took eight years to build, claimed the lives of 16 workers and was officially opened in 1972. However, the modern history of this project starts some 17 years earlier when the first investigations began.
What Mr O’Shea doesn’t mention in his letter is the idea of building a power station at Lake Manapouri was first put forward by the Superintending Engineer of the Public Works Department in 1903. It wasn’t until the mid-1920s that rights were granted to develop a power station but due to lack of financing, this project never got off the ground.
With the fine summer weather and water restrictions starting early this year, there has been much public chat about building another lake and doing more to store all that ‘Naki rain we get over winter. Yes, these could be options but are you prepared to pay for it? The Benmore lake and power station cost $62 million in
1965, adjusted for inflation, that’s about $2.4 billion in today’s money!
There are also practical considerations. Heavy rain running off land flushes dirt, bacteria such as E.coli and chemicals from fertilisers into our rivers. Every winter we have to shut down some of our treatment plants after a heavy deluge because the water is simply too dirty to treat.
Over the next 30 years water will be a massive issue and one we need to stay ahead of. We’ve recently started to share our draft
10-year pan which allocates $263 million for water. It proposes we should invest $30m on finding a new water source, for example another Lake Mangamahoe and about $8m on creating two new reservoirs at Henwood and Mountain roads. In the meantime, it’s important we all become Wai Warriors and save water wherever we can this summer. There are obviously plenty of Wai Warriors out there, since water restrictions went on there has been a noticeable drop in water use; so well done and keep it up.
There is one thing Mr O’Shea and I do agree on; Aucklanders are just jealous that we live in the best place in New Zealand.
David Langford
NPDC Infrastructure Manager