WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE, BUT NONE TO DRINK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 98, 15 February 1950, Page 5

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE, BUT NONE TO DRINK

There is a major riot brewing amongst housewives in Whakatane. What are the wild wives saying?

They* are whispering anything but sweet nothings about the Borough water supply, and they are not in any mood to listen to, scientific explanations. What they are browned off about is the fact that mud comes out of the taps and they say, with the instinctive logic of the female that makes her so much more deadly than the fmale, that you can’t wash with itovyou can’t drink it, you can’t cook with it. And, worst of all, you simply cannot put it in Baby’s bottle. So, says Mrs Mother of Ten. what’s to be done?

Well, with a team of more or less irate women milling around his luxurious office threatening to scratch the mahogany furniture or damage the air-conditioning plant, the Editor of the Beacon had to admit he didn’t know.

What, they wanted to know, was the Borough Council doing about it?

We told ’em as much as we knew. That the Council has elaborate plans for a vastly improved Borough water service and that the expert the Council hired to figure it out reckons it will deliver a plenteous supply of good . water. Further, we told them the Council workmen have their worries keeping the present plant going when the river is a bit lively, and more worries keeping something in the reservoir when there isn’t any rain.

In fact, we assured them that we had been assured things would come right in time.

But they still wanted to know why the Government allowed the Council to feed their babies mud. We told them to ask Mr Holland. After all, a newspaper can’t filter the Borough water.

They wanted to know what the Health Department was doing about it. , We suggested they ask the Health Department. But we added we had heard it said at Borough Council meetings that., the present water was graded fit for human consumption alright. The ladies left, snorting. We hope they paid a few more visits. Why should iwe suffer alone?