September 9 2010

Engineers have been crawling all over the Rangitata Diversion Race, looking for cracks and other damage caused by Saturday's big earthquake.

RDR chief executive Ben Curry said the 73-year-old canal appeared intact and should have water flowing in it again next week.

"We have had four teams of engineers in the last 48 hours looking at it, and another guy on Monday. Visibly, she looks alright."

Mr Curry said proof the canal had withstood the 7.1 magnitude quake would occur when water began flowing again next week.

The canal has been empty for the past two weeks while new off-takes are created for the Barrhill Chertsey Irrigation Scheme.

The work is on schedule to be completed by Wednesday, when the canal will be slowly refilled with water for irrigators.

"We will do it cautiously over a period of four or five days. Obviously signs of leakage or seepage would indicate a problem but we are pretty confident that we have not got any real damage to the RDR."

Engineers have been checking structures on the canal, and concrete siphons where the water is carried underground.

Mr Curry said there was some debate over the potential for greater damage if the canal had been full of water when the quake struck.

"Having that much more weight in the system must have the potential to have an impact."

BCU chairman John Wright said he was confident the installation work would be complete by next Wednesday, despite wet weather so far in the three-week shutdown.

Mr Curry said a delay of a few days should not concern farmers as there was no demand yet for irrigation.