The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-09-23

| employed in delivering sand cement and
other material for this lining work.
KOOLAU DITCH WATERSHED
! The watershed intercepted by this
which will constantly flow into the ditch
| including all those between Keanae and
| Honomanu which carry a minimum in
| long droughts about forty million gal
Ions daily, and in frequent flood times
over two hundred million gallons. ke-
amaze and Nahiku, owing to their pecu-
! liar geographical location on the wind
ward base of Haleakala, are the wettest
spots in the Hawaiian Islands, having
an average rainfall of over 800 inches
/ yearly. This is conserved by the grand
forest coating on this side of Haleakala,
which climb up to an elevation of 5000
feet above sea level, and makes this
rough side of Maui such an ideal wa
tershed.
The waters of the Kooi2u ditch are
distributed at its western terminus by
a partition weir of nine panels: one
/ third to the Hawaiian Commercial and
| two-thirds to the new corporation, the
Maui Agricultural Company, which in
| cludes the old Paia and Haiku planta-
tons. For nearly half the year Kihei
will be benefited by this work as when
the other plantations can not use their
excess of water it can be passed along
to Kihei
All the old bitches from the west end
of the new one at Waikamoi gulch,
l,207 feet high, to the plantations will
have to be enlarged and many new re-
servoirs made to store the surplus water
conveyed, as on the very first day the
new ditch carried water, over 100 feet
of the old ones was broken away by the
excessive additional volume, and had
to be repaired.
ACCIDENTS, ETC.
A complete hospital was organized
into which all the injured men were
placed and cared for, and only two men
of the 700 employed lost their lives
through falling off pals before the
trails We're finished. Not one man died
from tunnel or powder accidents due
to premature explosions, which speaks
well for the Japanese knowledge of eX-
plosives.
The Hon. II. p Baldwin accompanied
the Governor and Secretary Atkinson
last Friday through a portion of the
aqueduct before the formal opening
and expressed his pleasure at the con-
summation of the project.
From the commencement Mr.. NJ. NJ.
O'Shaughnessy has been in charge as
chief engineer and manager, with Mr..
Jorgensen as his able assistant, while
Ropers and Johnson have been lunaS
from start to finish
Some more small streams have to be
connected up with the Maui work,
which will be accomplished in few
months. after which it is expected that
the island of Maui will take its place
as the banner cane producer of the
Hawaiian Islands.
POWER PROPOSITIONS.
sir. O'Shaughnessy is now engaged
in preparing plans for utilizing the
power from one-third water of the
new Koolau ditch and all the water of
the old II. c. & 5. Co.'S tSpreckels)
ditch, which united together and drop
ped Just west of Waikamoi gulch TO
the level of the Lowrie ditch, viii give
about 200 horsepower This will be
utilized for driving some OF the existing
pumping stations and operating new
ones in the Wailuku valley where the
Hawaiian Commercial own extensive
property interests now unutilized.
This work can be very economically
done as the only extra expense 10 get
the water power will be TO install the
pressure pipe to the water wheels.