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MILDURA.
absence of funds to make it efficient. With regard to the former, the principal causes are the condition of the channels, and the bad state of repair of much of the pumping plant. To these may be added the costliness in some respects of raising the water to the land, and the fact that, under the present arrangement of the pumping stations on the Billabong system, a breakdown in one may mean the stoppage of the water supply for the whole area irrigated. What steps are to be taken to remedy the defective supply of water?
Suggestions for the remedy of the water supply: (a) Mr. Tolley's scheme.Mr. Tolley, the Secretary of the Trust, proposes to abandon the whole Billabong pumping system, and to erect a new concentrated station at Red Cliffs, quite outside the limits of the existing settlement, and to improve the Town and Homestead pumping plants. The chief features of his scheme are that the water would be raised in one lift by Worthington pumps into a 70 ft. channel and a 90 ft. channel, and that these are to be connected with the existing channels by the construction of ten miles of new channelling. He also proposes that thirty-four miles of the existing channels and distributories should be lined in the worst places with cement concrete, at a cost of 25,000l. The total cost of the scheme is estimated at 68,000l.—less proceeds of sale of Billabong plant—and the annual working expenses are estimated at 7110l., as compared with 11,000l. under the present system, the saving being chiefly in labour and fuel. Interest and sinking fund would absorb 3732l., so that there would be no immediate relief to the financial strain on the settlement. The advantages claimed for the scheme are: that it would irrigate the whole of the sold land, 15,000 acres, in the time that it now takes to irrigate219
