Untitled

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2088, 14 January 1908, Page 2

THE DRAINAGE OE GISBORNE. It is not at all likely that the Borough Council will wasto very much time over the report which Mr. Mestayer lias forwarded as a basis lor a scheme to provide drainage for Gisborne. 'There are many reasons why Ihe scheme should be dismissed as quite unsuitable, for this community at the present- time. In the iirst place it is too expensive, and in the second it does not provide for tho proper sanitation of the town. The complete scheme is estimated to cost £125, 000 and the immediate cost for present requirements £83,000. It can safely bo assumed, taking a line from past experience in such matters that the £83,000 would have grown more like £IOO,OOO before the system was in working order. Besides tho interest on this amount tho cost for maintenance Would certainly be fairly heavy and the annual charge thu6

saddlod upon the community would in our opinion bo considerably heavier than tbo circumstances justify. "VVo are just as lcoon ns anyono in urging that immediate stops should bo taken to give us some semblance of sanitation in (be town, but tbo work must be oil coinmnnsonso linos, and proportionate in ilo extent to tbo purse of a small population. Mr. Mestayer’s scliomo may bo an admirable one in its way for a community that is sufficiently developed to bear the cost, but it is certainly abend of this town’s requirements and resources. A fatal objection, morovor, to tbo scliomo is that after the ratepayers had incurred tho lioavy cost referred to they would still have to face tbo conditions which really constitute tbo greatest menace to the health of tho community. Tho sewerage system would deal in an entirely satisfactory manner with the disposition of night soil, but tbo surface water draining from bouses, which lying about in small pools, broods pestilential microbes in millions and tbo slops from kitchens and sculleries, which at present are thrown auywlicro in the backyards of tbo majority of homes in Gisborne, would stil remain as an ever present brooding ground for fevers and various epidemics. This is tbo aspect ofdraitiago which to our mind requires immediate attention. Tho disposition of night soil as at present carried out is far from satisfactory but it could be improved upon, possibly by the adoption of tbo scaled pan system, so that if not entirely unobjectionable it would at any rate bo perfectly satisfactory from tho point of view of its effect upon tbo health of tbo community. With surface drainage the position, however, is different, for it is in tho nools and puddles at tho backyards of bouses and sometimes of shops that tbo germs of deadly diseases lurk, and as wo have pointed out on previous ocassions these constitute a danger that should be dealt with immediately. It is not sufficient to say that wo have escaped up to the present. Anyone who gives the subject consideration must admit that tbo chances of a serious outbreak of fever are multiplied ten times by the presence of such conditions. In tho past the Council '•as delayed taking action in order that -Mr. Ale,stayer’s report should be forthcoming. Tho report is now to iiaml. and assuming the Council re-"gni-.es its impracticability under e'-i-fing circumstances, that body should take immediate steps to devise a scheme for the sanitation of (lie h irougli that, will be within its means. At present quite a number of perrons have at their own expense arranged excellent systems of drainage dealing with surface water and bon.ro slops by drainage with pipes to Ike river and it is probably in an extension of such a system that the Council will find the most prateicable Held for its efforts.