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Investigations begin about whether the Clutha River could potentially be dammed.
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Construction/building of the Roxburgh dam begins.
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Lake Hawea control dam is complete and put into use. Lake Hawea rises by 20m.
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Huge investigations into building more dams from the lakes to the sea on the Clutha River.
30 proposed dam sites, 20 of these were costed out. -
Reports are submitted outlining the environmental effects of damming the river. This is when a lot of the protesting began.
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A site is selected for building the Clyde Dam
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Bulldozers come in and start groundwork for the dam before ‘Water Right’ has been granted.
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Later - Water Right is granted but for a low dam, not a high dam (which was what was being built)
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Building begins on the right side of the dam (abutment - large concrete construction)
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Government agrees to the construction of a high dam.
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Government puts a tender out for the building of the dam. 7 recieved back -
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A tender is accepted at a cost of 102.6 million dollars.
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The fault line is discovered and the dam is redesigned to cope. This is the ‘slip joint’ that is located halfway across the dam. This allows for 2m of sideways and 1m of vertical movement.
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Work on the dam peaks with over 1000 workers being employed on site.
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Gorge stabilization work is completed. This is another extra cost.
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The dam is complete and the reservoir is filled flooding the Cromwell gorge.
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23 April - The dam is officially opened by
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Electrocorp who had ownership of the dam is split into two state owned assets. Contact Energy is now the operator of Clyde and Roxburgh dams.
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EME (Edison Mission Energy) from Australia gets 51.2% share holdings of Contact Energy.
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Contact Energy release plans for another 5 dams on the Clutha river.
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1 May - Contact Energy officially withdraws all plans for any more damming on the Clutha.