A book on the drama surrounding early plans to dam the Kawarau, written by John McCraw and titled Kawarau Fiasco, was launched in Cromwell last week.
Plans in the early 1900s to irrigate the Cromwell flats using the river were a spectacular failure, thwarted by personality clashes and errors of judgement.
Contact Clutha hydro project manager and Cromwell resident Neil Gillespie told those at the book launch he felt a strong link to some of the people behind the Kawarau scheme in the early 1900s.
''Like some of the driving forces behind that scheme, I've worked in the electrical industry - on the Clyde Dam, which didn't fail, but then on the four or five other Clutha hydro schemes, and I guess we'd say they failed,'' Mr Gillespie said.
Contact revived plans in 2008 for further dams on the Clutha but shelved the project last year.
''We can only connect with our history because of people like you. People like me and my kids are going to have this resource that would be lost without your research and writing.''
It is the 13th book written by 87-year-old Mr McCraw, of Hamilton, and his ninth focusing on Central Otago history.
He worked in Central Otago as a soil scientist for the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research in the 1950s, which sparked his interest in the area's history.
''When I worked here I'd be constantly coming over old dams or water races in the hills and I'd ask about it and be told 'some old miner built it' but nobody would know who ...I thought that wasn't very satisfactory.''
The idea for the Kawarau book germinated in the Cromwell Museum four years ago, Mr McCraw said.
After seeing photos of ''Sargoods Weir'' he went to view the structure and discovered it had been flooded when Lake Dunstan was created.
In about 1911, Cromwell publican George Neill started a campaign to have the Cromwell flats irrigated using the Kawarau River. He was an entrepreneur and thought the scheme would make money and the irrigated flats would be used for fruitgrowing and farming, Mr McCraw said.
The scheme was taken up by a group of Dunedin investors headed by philanthropist Percy Sargood.
The first attempt to dam the river began in 1915 and involved two concrete pillars being felled into the water to raise the river level, but that proved a failure.
Engineer Teddy Iles was told he would be paid 2000 for the next attempt and built an ''upside-down dam'' from old dredge ladders that was partly successful in blocking the river. Conflict between Mr Iles and Mr Sargood led to the dam being left unfinished and the company exhausted its funds trying to complete the scheme, Mr McCraw said.
It was another 35 years before the area was finally irrigated, under a government scheme.
''There's two themes to my book. The first is about the physical building of the dams, the various structures, and the second theme is about human relationships and how personality clashes thwarted the plans,'' he said.
Mr McCraw has almost completed his next book, which focuses on the Bendigo goldfields.
''It was thought to be a rich gold mine, but it wasn't as rich as people thought.''
Kawarau Fiasco was published by Mr McCraw and is available through the Cromwell Museum.
