CAMPASPE STORAGE BASIN

(To the Editor of the Advertiser)

Sir, —In deciding to construct a storage basin on the Campaspe at Kimbolton or ??  {unreadable words}, as it is officially known, to supply the off-take weir at Elmore, which is to irrigate some 40,000 acres, south of the Waranga Loddon channel, the Water Commission have not to my idea, fixed on the east site, and I have no hesitation in saying this, for I have known the river some 50 years.

One of the great factors to the success of a storage basin is to have the stored water spread over as little area as possible, so as to check evaporation in summer and seepage all through the year.

This is impossible at the selected site, as no river vallev worth speaking of, exists and the water will be spread over a large area outside the river banks of no great depth.

The site I am in favor of, and one well known to all Bendigonians, is at Axedale, just

below the road bridge, and opposite Ingham’s quarries. Here is a magnificent, river valley, perhaps unequalled in the State for such a purpose, from 250 to 300 yards wide, the banks rising 80 to 100 foot high, while up the stream the valley opening out over the Marydale flat, on one side and the racecourse on the  other, with the high banks still around, forms a basin almost a mile wide, giving a great depth of water over the whole area.

This site also has the advantage that the racecourse and police paddock are Crown lands, costing nothing for resumption, also has an increased watershed of great value.

I know that the railway and road bridges would be submerged, but in these days of

advanced engineering, it would not be impossible to carry the traffic of both over the

barrage wall. Such would mean a deviation of the railway line through Axedale township,

but it would have the advantage of bringing the station, now a mile away, right, into the township, open up the blue stone quarries on each side of the river, and make Axedale a seaside resort,  on account of its direct railway communication to what would

be one of the finest inland lakes in the State.

Again the impounded water could be used for turbines to generate electricity for the

use of the Bendigo mines and other industries, also for electric lighting and traction

for electric railways and buses and many other things of which we are in need and

behind the rest of the world.

Bendigo should look well into this matter, as it concerns them as deeply as the farmer

on the northern plains, and it may mean the very life of the mining industry, where a cheap motive power is very badly needed.

yours etc.