Douglas Street Pump Scheme

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 59, 23 June 1948, Page 5

Douglas Street Pump Scheme

RESIDENTS ANGLE ON COST QUESTION

Following representations of a deputation to the Whakatane Borough Council’s ordinary meeting last week, Mr Stan Evans, a builder, of Valley Road, has written at length to the Beacon elaborating the arguments of residents of the Douglas street area against the Council’s proposition that they should contribute £125 towards a total of £585 needed to instal a stormwater pump. He claims these property owners, members of the deputation, are suffering from what he allege.s is the Council’s policy of “dumping all the street storm water from numerous streets on to their land with no possibility of its getting away when the main drain from the Gorge rises,” and he further alleges the Council is adding insult to injury by asking a few sufferers from its “inadequate system of draining streets of State houses on to the Douglas street area,” to find £125 towards the cost of getting rid of the nuisance so created, telling the deputation they will benefit by the pump. Certainly, he concedes, they will benefit when the'Council stops draining its storm water from streets on to private property owners around Douglas street area. , “Councillor Warren said he did not consider it unfair to ask those who were to benefit to contribute to the cost of the proposed plant. Why not an equal contribution from all those property owners who are at present benefiting by having their storm water taken either by pipes or open drains through Mr Prideaux’s property in Douglas street or piped through a vacant section in Salonika street on to land comprising six one acre sections, for. which the owners pay a tidy sum in rates?

“If a few shops in town were flooded out,” he asks, “would any of the Councillors ask for a lump sum deposit from a few sufferers, or would they abate the nuisance by loan or out of the general ratepayers? “Councillor Sullivan said they had a legal right to drain storm water through * private land. In view of the fact that the drain does not function when there is any water in it owing to the rising level of the main drain ’ from the Gorge, it is very doubtful whether any Council can legally deposit their stormwater on • private land. ( “However, that is a matter for the Court to decide. Whether it is legal or not, I desire to say that what may be legal is not always just. “As regards the £SOO spent on -dredging out the main drain from the Gorge,to King Street, while a bottle neck was left beyond that point, I pointed out at the time that they were only wasting the ratepayers’ money, that the first flood would silt up the lot. That is what happened. “I suggested at the tame that they should go and see what was done in other towns, but my suggestions fell on deaf ears. I suggested that it requited catchment areas in the main gorge to stop the silt, similar to the Normandale Gorge at Lower Hutt, and when I and others suggested a pumping plant at Douglas street, all our ideas were ridiculed. “Now the Council sees that a pump at Douglas Street is the only means of getting rid of its storm water, unless it can legally dump it on to a few private property owners for a few more years, also it can see that dredging the main drain is useless and will continue to be until catchment areas for silt are installed in the Gorge. Had the Council at the time investigated other local body methods regarding streams and stormwater, and taken a leaf out of their book, £SOO of the ratepayers’ money could have been saved.

“I remember 30 years ago when parts of the Hutt City were a paradise for wild ducks and eels. Opposite the Hutt Power Board offices was hundreds of acres of land, a proper swamp, and water from all roads poured on to it. Today it is a mass of houses and shops. “Why? Because they did not have Councillors stating that they should not build there or that it was really only a place for ducks and eels, or that the Hutt Council had a legal right to drain the Main Hutt higa way on to this land, or ask a fe\g isolated settlers to pay for a purro. “All this work was clone bj raising rates or by raising loans. It is time something practical was done with the Alexandria Avenue and Douglas Street “duck pond” which has been a convenient legal dumping' ground for flood waters long enough.”