100 Stratford Road, Kotuku-Kokiri, Grey
This power station is located on Arnold River at a location the local Ngai Tahu called Kaimata. From there a loop walk through the bush on the adjacent hill takes in a view of the dam where the water enters the pipeline leading down to the turbines. It is an easy walk with a little bit of climbing taking about 45 minutes. The power station operates on a 'run of river" basis i.e. it has no storage, and has an output of 3 Megawatts.
Upstream of the dam, there’s an excellent recreational fishery, as well as recreational camping and walking areas. Downstream, the combined flow from generation, spillway gates and the remainder of the river supports a stable fishery. The river is also popular for kayaking.
Like many West Coast power stations, the one on the Arnold River was built in the depression by local unemployed labour. Until the 1990s, proud West Coasters benefited from these small, sustainable power stations twice over by way of low power prices, due to high rainfall, and annual rebates as ‘Westpower’ was community owned. The Government put a stop to that with the split of line and supply companies, forcing the ownership to move to a bigger corporate model, in this case TrustPower. A massive delegation of Coasters headed to Parliament to protest the move but they went unheard.
When it took over, TrustPower made various promises to the people of the Coast, who were by now cynical about corporate intentions especially when coupled with government interventions. Again the Arnold River was a case in point when plans were lodged to increase its capacity to a projected output of 46 MW. Though consents were granted in 2010, they were not acted upon by 2016, some pundits blaming international economic conditions.
Trustpower were however forced by the Environment court (after objections took them there) to create an annual elver (young eel) trap and transfer programme at the Dam. This aims to help boost numbers of Longfin Eel.
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