DRAINAGE BOARD.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 912, 28 May 1877, Page 2

DRAINAGE BOARD.

Monday, May 28.

A meeting of the Board was held at 10.30 a.m. Present—Messrs H. J. Tancred (chairman), Hobbs, Duncan, Harman, Hall, Jones, and Ross. THE HEATHCOTE DISTRICT. Mr Duncan desired to draw attention to the stagnation of the drain on the East town belt, which he thought had silted up. He also called attention to several other matters with reference to the drains in the district. He would like to ask why it was that the same arrangement had not been made with the Heathcote as with the other Road Boards to employ their men to keep the drains of the district in order. The Engineer explained that the drains in the district were very few, and were so close to the city that he was enabled to look after them with the men he had under his own orders. The Engineer was instructed to look into the matter. THE DRAINAGE QUESTION. Mr Jones said that Mr Bray had taken umbrage at some remarks made by him as to the onus of the outfall drain. Mr Bray had pointed out that he had resigned his position as consulting engineer to the Council, and Mr Blackett had succeeded him. There was no doubt, however, of this, that some one, either the surveyor to the City Council, or some one else, was to blame for the malconstruction of the outfall drain. He desired to make this explanation because Mr Bray had felt somewhat aggrieved at the remarks made. As Mr Bray was not consulting engineer at the time the outfall drain was projected he was not to blame. THE MANIFESTO OF THE BOARD.

The following letter from Mr Ollivier, in reply to the manifesto of the Board was read :

To the Chairman and Members of the Drainage Board.

Christcliurch, May 26, 1877,

Gentlemen, —I beg to acknowledge the receipt of a letter under date 22nd May, signed E. H. Palmer, in which you inform me that a reply to my letter to your Board will be found in the daily papers in an address to the ratepayers. I have read that address very carefully, and the report of the proceedings of your Board on Monday, the 21st May, which must be read in connection with it. The intentions of the Board are set forth in that address under five clauses : and you conclude by proposing a method for ascertaining the wishes of the ratepayers with regard to your retention of office ; and that is, that if within one month a requisition signed by a majority of tlie ratepayers is presented condemnatory of the plan you will resign.

Your manifesto is to all intents and purposes a re-affirmation of your intention to hold to Mr Carruthers's plan and to carry it into effect sooner or later.

The first of the five clauses I have referred to, viz., " That you do not intend to introduce the system of water-closets in connection with any drains, sewers, or water courses under .your control '' affords absolutely no guarantee for any period beyond a few yearn. I am led to this conclusion by the report of the meeting of your Board on Monday the 21st, when my letter was under consideration. Mr Duncan said that "rather than recede from the scheme proposed by Mr Carruthers he would resign at once." Mr Wright is reported to have said " that to abandon the plans would be ivfra digx" while Mr Hobbs asserted "that it was too late to reconsider the question." These were the very decided opinions of three members of the Board; the opinions of Messrs Harman, Boss, and Jones were less forcible. Mr Tancred, as chairman, was neutral and Mr Hall was a thorough dissentient. The question at issue is still therefore distinctly the adoption of the deep sewer system, intended ultimately to carry excreta as against the high level system under judicious arrangement for water only.

Yon demand that the ratepayers shall reject your decision upon this matter wit bin one month, or you will proceed with the work regardless of their opinion, or any opposition which may hereafter be brought to bear upon it.

The acceptance of a deejj drainage system is quite recent, and its conception by Mr Carruthers was evidently without the smallest previous conference with yourselves.

Mr Napier Bell was appointed to the office of engineer by your Board, and from him the ratepayers naturally expected to receive a plan of some sort; but instead of this the consulting engineer is converted into acting engineer, and suggests a scheme without any written instructions as to whether the district needed underground or surface <lrainage, and no documentary, indeed no evidence of any kind was furnished by the Board for his guidance. The levels, which had been more than once taken at considerable cost, seem also to have been absolutely rejected. There is no difficulty in complying with the two conditions set forth in yem* " manifesto' 1 as being so, necessary for sanitary purposes, viz :

1. That the water and slops from houses, shall be removed quickly. 2. That the soil near the surface be net allowed to got permanently saturated. A judicious system of surface drainage with the requisite offtakes by means of a reasonable amount of underground sewers can be made to provide for all our requirements for many years to come, and probably at a cost of one-third of that of the deep drainage scheme proposed by Mr Carruthers. T fail to see why tlie ratepayers of this generation are to be saddled with the ospeu.t>e of providing a scheme of deep

drainage, which, as Mr Duncan is reported to have said, may in fifteen or twenty years hence be advantageous to the city for the purpose of hen carrying away its water-closet excreta. I fail to discover that there is that unanimity of action upon your Board, which is so essential for the proper carrying out of so large a scheme, and I am afraid that deep pipe drains in the city will he productive of endless expense, and the not unfrequent repetition of the misfortune which has already happened to the outfall dram, upon which Mr Bell reports that from a faulty construction in quicksand, a considerable portion will have to be re-formed, and possibly placed mt ihgw level • I observe, too, the remarks made by Mr Harman that had Mr Carruthers known how averse the ratepayers were to the deep sewerage system, he would beyond doubt have provided some other scheme, and even now it might be possible for him to alter the plan. ~.,,.„ You state that you decline to be influenced by the decision of public meetings, the composition of which you have no knowledge. This is a reflection upon those who have convened them. You have been already informed that only one of these meetings was called by circular, the others by public advertisement, at every one of which every member of your Board could have been present and could have taken part, had he been so disposed. It reads like a repetition of the charge of packed meetings, and if it is so intended, the imputation reflects most unfavorably upon your Board. The onus of procuring a reply to your manifesto appears to me to rest with you. I have already shewn by incontrovertible testimony that the ratepayers are averse to Mr Carruthers's scheme. It has been proved by the evidence of Mr Hall, a member of your Board, who bore testimony to the character and order of the meeting held at the Oddfellows' Hall; therefore the method of procuring this further expression of the ratepayers' opinions should be suggested and earned out by yourselves. lam not calling upon the Board to resign. I simply ask that you will abandon Mr Carruthers's deep drainage scheme, and substitute for it one of a less costly, less elaborate character, which a judicious scheme of surface drainage, with outfall sewers taken to the deep sea channel, will undoubtedly prove to be. I am, moreover, convinced that such a scheme can easily be provided by a body of really competent local engineers—say Mr Napier Bell and two others —whose business it would be to provide for and overcome the engineering difficulties : these are beyond the province of laymen to deal with; and, further, I believe it to be the duty of a Drainage Board to determine amongst themselves upon the main features of the scheme they desire to submit for the consideration of such a body. The selection of these engineers and all other arrangements are matters for the consideration of the Drainage Board. They are purely administrative functions, with which the ratepayers have scarcely a right to interfere. I am as deeply impressed as your Board can be of the necessity for immediate action being taken in the matter, more particularly as regards the low lying districts around the city, but this inaction is not to be attributed to the dissenting' ratepayers ; deeply as we may regret its possible effect, the delay cannot be so serious in a sanitary sense as a perseverance in your scheme will be to the poorer class of ratepayers, whose interest you appear to be so desirous of conserving—to them the creation of a perpetual tax will be ruinous.

The Board appears to have entirely overlooked the fact that the drainage district extends over a very large area, and a part of which comprises an agricultural population, the one most unfairly called upon to contribute by rates to the construction of a system of sewage that is entirely unnecessary for their requirements. And the Board seem also to have forgotten that in consequence of the great area of the district, that it would be manifestly unfair to require a petition to be signed by one-half of the ratepayers scattered over such an extent of country, in so short a period as one month ; and if therefore the Board are fully determined to abide by their manifesto, and to insist upon the petition, they should, at any rate, allow of ample time being given for the ratepayers to have an opportunity of signing the same. I have the honor to be, gentlemen, Your obedient servant, J. Ollivier, On behalf of the Committee.

N. B.—l have the honor to add on behalf of the committee that it would he willing to confer with the Board, and endeavor to come to some satisfactory adjustment of the question. Mr Ross thought that Mr Ollivier took Upon himself the functions of an engineer. Mr Jones would move—" That a consultation take place between the Board and the committee." He thought that good would be done by the meeting of the Board with the committee, as it was necessary that the matter should be settled.

Mr Boss thought they were in a peculiar position. They had resolved at a meeting, alter some six hours consultation, to take a certain course. All they now had to do was (o push forward in that course, allowing a little time for the requisition from the ratepavers to come in. It seemed to him that they would be stultifying themselves if they accepted a scheme of surface drainage from Mr Ollivier and his friends. Seven out of the eight membere had signed a definite expression of their views, and they could not recede I'rom it.

Mr Duncan moved —' received."

"That the letter be

The motion was agreed to. Mr Jones then moved his motion in the following amended form —" That, in reply to Mr Ollivicr's letter, asking for a conference with the Board on behalf of the committee, his request be complied with, and such conference take place at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 29th, at the offices of the Board." Mr Hall would second the resolution. He would like to consult the ratepayers on many subjects, as he considered the decision of the Board as regarded the taking of the votes of half of the ratepayers an unfair one. He felt that they should reconsider that part. Mr Ollivicr's letter was a perfectly courteous one to the Board, and the suggestion that Mr Napier Bell should be their consulting engineer was a very good one. He (Mr Hall) had every confidence in Mr Bell, as he believed all the members of the Board and the public also had.

Mr Hobbs had much pleasure in supporting the resolution. The action taken by the Board on Monday last was, he thought, a proper one, and he believed the majority of the ratepayers did not wish the Board to resign. So far as they saw from what had come before them, the committee did not intend to put the machinery in motion to get them I o resign under these circumstances. He took it as a great compliment to their ability to manage the affairs of the drainage district. He had been considering in his mind during the week whether they could not concede something without compromising their engineer, and he thought he had found it. It was this, that Mr Bell had brought before, them the faulty construction of the outfall drain. A? thoy had to re-construct this, why should they not make a yood job of it ? It was only fair to Mr Carr.uthers to say that when he made Lis plans he looked upon the outfall drain asa permanent work, to be utilised as much as possible. He had done so, and now, without deviating from, his loyalty to Mr Carruthers

as to his plan being the best, the discovery left an opening for the procuring of a drainage plan which would provide for the drainage of Christchurch by gravitation more than now. This might be worked out in conference with the opposition, and he was prepared, after consultation with Mr Carruthers, if he did not care about submitting a modified plan, to place the matter in the hands of Mr Bell or any other engineer. He might point out that, by taking the outfall at a lower level, they would escape a large expense in the shape of compensation on the Ferry road. But whilst they did this they must be careful not to injure Mr Carruthers' reputation. What they should do wasif they agreed upon any general principle to write to Mr Carruthers asking him to modify the plans according to the principle they would be likely to adopt after the conference. He was of opinion that Mr Carruthers' reply would be in the negative, as he was now much pressed with work and had not furnished them with the scheme for the rural districts which they should have had long ago. Well, if the reply was as lie anticipated in the negative, he should be quite prepared to entrust the whole scheme in the hands of Mr Bell, in whom the Board had every confidence in conjunction with other locai engineers, notably Mr Dobson, with whom Mr Bell could work. Though the Board were virtually masters of the situation as evidenced by the opposition declining to proceed with the requisition to them to resign, the Board could, without stultifying itself, concede certain points. He felt sure the opposition would have to abandon every point of their scheme. The flat sewers, as proposed by them, would silt up and be utterly useless. Nor must they expect that the change in the scheme would be a very great saving. They must disabuse their minds of the idea that a great saving would be made. Every system, even a surface one, would of necessity be very costly; and the fact that the city had already spent £53,000 in the simplest of drainage proved that. If they went to carry out the channel system into the suburbs it would cost some £200,000 to complete. While advocating the conference and the general principles of the new scheme, he might say that he had not for one moment lost faith in Mr Carruthers's scheme. He fully believed in it in every detail. The whole matter, it seemed to him, was now to be referred to the engineers, with no instructions beyond the request to provide the best system of drainage to carry off the house slops and surface water only, and not the closet dejecta. By meeting the committee, he did not intend to sacrifice their principles, but simply to see if, from an interchange of opinions, the Board could not evolve a scheme which would increase the sphere of their usefulness. Mr Harman said that in 1871 the same features of opposition appeared. Therefore he did not think they were called upon to take very much notice of the features of the opposition. Since the last meeting of the Board he had taken some trouble to find out the opinions of the ratepayers as regarded Mr Carruthers's scheme. Hefound that the great bulk of the ratepayers objected to have any scheme from Mr Carruthers. The general result of his enquiries was that the ratepayers would not have the scheme put before them by the Board. It was therefore not. necessary that they should go further to ascertain what the views of the ratepayers were. He thought therefore that great benefit would result from a conference with the committee, which certainly represented the ratepayers. By such a conference the views of the public would be put before them, and an understanding would be arrived at. The funds at their disposal was the money of the ratepayers, and therefore he desired to meet their representatives in order to understand what plan they desired. He had thought the one the Board had put before them the right one, but he found he was mistaken. The conference would, he thought, facilitate their work, and would enable them to get over what would otherwise be a dead lock. He therefore supported the resolution.

Mr Duncan was sorry that so much had been said that day. He should like to have seen the deputation attend there without having a cue given to them. His opinion as regarded the system of deep v surface drainage had not altered. The Board he thought had nothing to do with the side channels, and he thought they should be very careful before they agreed to spread side channels all over the district. Whatever plans they had would not be satisfactory to him which did a piece here and a piece there without the connecting links between. This was what he wanted to see done. The members of the Board were all open to conviction, and he thought that the conference with the committee would do a great deal of good. He supported the resolution, but thought that it would have been better if some of the members had been somewhat more reticent as to the intentions of the Board. He should like to have heard the conference and consider their arguments before laying down a plan. The motion was then put and earned. A letter was read from Mr J. L. Wilson, forwarding a resolution passed at a meeting held at Papanui on Friday last. It was resolved that Mr Wilson be tnfoiuued that the subject of the drainage of the outlying districts was under consideration. After passing several accounts the Board adjourned until 10.30 a.m. to-morrow, when it will meet for the purpose of receiving the committee of ratepayers.