The first boreholes at Wairākei in the early 1950s were discharged into the atmosphere for weeks at a time, to check whether steam would discharge constantly over a long period. There was an immediate decline in the activity of nearby geysers and hot springs. By the time the Wairākei geothermal power station was commissioned in 1958, all the geysers in Geyser Valley and Taupō Spa had disappeared.
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