THE WATER SUPPLY QUESTION.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1900, 27 March 1880, Page 3

THE WATER SUPPLY QUESTION.

The following reply to Messrs Dobson and Son's letter has been forwarded by the Chairman of the Water Supply Committee, in accordance with a resolution carried to that effect at the last sitting of the City Council:—

"Gentlemen,—Your letter of the 18th inst. having been laid hefore the Oounoil last evening, has been returned to the Water Supply Committee, with instructions to answer the asms, and to point out to you some inaccuracies contained in it. We have, therefore, the hour to roply as follows : «« 1. Yon state in your letter that ' five months ago the Water Supply Committee did ns the honour of asking us to undertake the management of the gravitation soheme proposed by Mr White.' This statement is incorrect. The Water Supply Committee has never asked yon to take ' the management of the Waimakariri Boheme. The facts are these. The Water Supply Committee resolved to ask the Council for permission to employ you as ' advising engineer • on the Waimakariri scheme, and with a view of placing before the Council a statement of the terms on which you would act, so that the Council might know what expense they would be going to in making the appointment, the Committee waited upon you to ascertain what those terms would be. You, however, Tdeclinod to have anything to do with the Waimakariri scheme on the grounds which you then stated to the Committee. As a matter of fact, therefore, you have never been officially asked to do anything to the Waimakariri scheme since the present Council was elected. "2. You have stated that the Council have unanimously agreed to recommend to the ratepayers for their adoption the alternative scheme proposed by Mr Blaokwcll. This statement is incorrect. The Council hag pledged itßelf to recommend the Waimakariri scheme to the ratepayers, and has resolved to adopt the alternative scheme only on the failure of the Council to meet with public support. "3. You state that the report lent in by Mr Blackwell is simply 'a repetition of the advice we freely gave the committee, as detailed in our letter of October 11th.' We do not find, on comparing Mr Blackwell's report with your letter, that this statement is borne out. We find in your letter that you suggest the supply to be taken from a deep artesian well or from the river, and for fire extinction purposes you state that, 'speaking with some considerable experience of the advantage and defects of gravitation schemes, I consider that, in this present instance, the most effective and by far the least expensive method of meeting this requirement is to substitute for the fire-engines a stationary engine at a pumping station.' Mr Black well, so far from recommending a 'stationary engine ' (by which the committee assumes you to mean a steam engine), distinctly states that the use of steam is inadvisable, and recommends the use of a turbine to obtain the necessary power. And so far from using the power of the proposed turbine to obtain the direct pressure necessary for fire extinction purposes, Mr Blackwell recommends the use of a reservoir on the Port hills to provide the necessary pressure for fire extinction. Taking these important differences into consideration, we cannot find that Mr Blackwell's report is i>y any means simply a repetition of the advice you have given. The Committee beg further to point out that Mr Blackwell never claims to have originated any part of the water scheme he has reported on. We find that the use of artesian water, Avon water, stationary engines, turbineß, reservoirs on Port hills, were all suggested in the competitive schemes sent in to the Council in 1878, and it seems to this committee that the chief merit in Mr Blackwell's report lies in the judicious manner in whioh he has compiled the best features of several different suggestions whioh have been made from time to time.

"By the direction of the Council, a copy of your letter was sent to Mr Bkokwell, and he has sent a reply to the committee, of which a copy is enclosed. " I have, &3., " W. Vincent, " Chairman of the Water Supply Committee." |_copr.] " Hereford street, Christchurch, Maroh 23. " To the chairman and members of the Water Supply Committee, City Council Chambers. " Gentlemen, —I have the honor of acknowledging the receipt of your communication of this date, enclosing oopy of a letter re water supply, Bent to the Council by Messrs Dobson and Son. In compiling my report upon an alternative scheme, I did not overlook the fact that, in the multitude of schemes whioh have been at one time or another suggested, there would naturally be some characteristics which I should probably have to touch upon, and I therefore carefully avoided claiming complete originality in the report I sent in to the Council by making use of such expressions as ' Compiled by Louis B. 'Blackwell,' 'are suggested,' &c, &o. "If the intention of Messrs Dobson and Son was to accuse me of piracy they will surely acknowledge their error if they will be goad enough to read my report as sent in by me to the Council. On referring to their letter of October 11th, I find that the principal features of the scheme they suggested are embraced in the following words—' To substitute for the fire engine a stationary engine at a pumping station, the supply to which might be, in the first instance, from the Avon, bo as the water in the mains was only used for street cleaning and fire extinction ; and, ultimately, from a tank supplied by an artesian well on a large scale,' &o. The method here suggested of obtaining ' pressure by pumpiag * has been adopted in many executed works, and has proved perfectly effective.

" I certainly do not understand from the above that Mr Dobson suggests a turbine, or reservoir, as recommended in my report; nor have I ever heard him advocate such auxiliaries. And here I may take the opportunity of reminding Mr Dobson that my being in any way an assistant of his consisted merely in my acceding to a written request that I should undertake certain levels for him. On hearing, however, that my presence was required at Christchurch on the water supply question, I had to relinquish this work: and at no time have I been engaged in his office as his letter would Beem to imply. It, however, gives me great satisfaction to read that a Fellow Associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers endorses so readily the recommendations I have put forth, and whioh have been unanimously adopted by the Council.— I have, &a. " Louis B. Biackwbkcp, Absoo. Inst. C.E."