NO WATER!

Evening Star, Issue 19784, 7 February 1928, Page 8

NO WATER!

ANDERSON'S BAY DILEW “SCANDALOUS STATE OF AFFAIRS ” STRONG PETITION TO CITY COUNCIL For years residents of the high levels of Anderson’s Bay have been loud in their complaints against the neglect of the water supply. No apparent efforts to solve the problem have been made by the City Council, the obvious reason being that tho.mains will have to bo extended. The 4in main originally installed for tho Bay still serves the district, \ ' di has grown rapidly. On washing days residents ; ive been without water, and water for bathing has been unobtainable at other times. Tho seriousness of. the position has been stressed by ‘ Star 1 investigators and by tho local residents and Burgesses’ Association on several occasions, and the question has now reached The point when a strong petition signed by sixty ratepayers has been forwarded to tho City Council under date February 3. ’

The shortage of water opens up a big speculation over the danger to the health of tho community. “Needless to say, if an epidemic broke out in this locality it would not remain confined there, hut would affect tho whole of Dunedin,” slated a leader of the petitioners. “infantile paralysis, which invariably accompanies dry seasons, is now prevalent in Australia, while the common house lly is more numerous in tho Bay than at any time during the last five years.” Tho petition which has been forwarded to the council is as iollows:—■ Four years ago the mayor and yourselves were invited to visit Anderson’s Bay so that some of the passing needs of the district might be ocularly demonstrated to you. First and lore most your attention was directed to the meagre watersupply available to the higher levels, and, in our endeavor to assist you to a solution of tho problem, two practical schemes were submitted for your consideration. To further stress the matter you were motored to a site suitable for a storage basin. To-night your city engineer is reported to have stated that there is no actual scarcity of water. Does this gentleman know that for the past six weeks not a drop of water has conio through the mains at the crown of Hunt and Oakland streets between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.?—in fact, since Monday it has come through only at midnight, and has been off again at 6.30 a.m.—and that habitation, in this part of beautiful Dunedin, is alone possible through a domestic storage tank, from which the Health Department (and rightly so)'objects to being connected wiitt the sanitary drainage, and, still further, that nearly all residents on these high levels are compelled to Jill their wasbtnbs and baths in older that tliev mav have sufficient to dip out with' a bucket to flush these conveniences at the cost of being deprived of their baths when most urgently required in the interests of health and decency. Are you aware, sirs, that your officers are granting building permits for still more bouses to draw off from this already insufficient 4in main, or that such main has limitations? Possibly tho latter fact has not previously occurred to you; in any case, one is forced to that conclusion, or, in the alternative, that the absence of perspicuity indicates.a state of senile decay at your council table. We now ask, as ratepayers, that this scandalous state of affairs be brought to an end. We have, suffered long and patiently, and if after four years your executive officers cannot deal rVith a matter which is a civic disgrace to a city of Dunedin’s standing) cither replace them by men who can, nr stand down yourselves, and allow live men to administer tho city’s life-and-dcatb problems.

Excavations arc at present being made at Ross's corner, and residents are assuming that a Force pump to supply more water to the high level during high consumption hours will bo installed. Confirmation of this report was not obtainable this afternoon, but one resident who has made a complete study of the Bay’s water problem declared that the pump would give little relict.