CITIES’ WATER SUPPLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 3, 25 March 1927, Page 10

CITIES’ WATER SUPPLY

WELLINGTON AND AUCKLAN' LATTER’S BETTER POSITION (From Our Resident Correspondent .) WELLINGTON, Thursday. The question of Wellington’s water supply, which is recognised as sufficient only for the present generation, has been freely discussed as the result of a report by Auckland’s city engineer to the conference last week, and a comparative review shows the northern city to have made greater use of her facilities than the capital. The inadequacy of the Wellington supply was shown by the warning issued recently, that if the drought lasted much longer hosing would be prohibited entirely. Rain fell just at the proper time. Mr. Morton, a former city engineer, reported in 1919 that a suitable site for a dam below the existing Wainui Dam was capable of storing 800,000 gallons, and that the Wainui-O-Mata weir was capable of supplying during the winter an additional quantity to be stored. Comparative figures show the following: Wainui stores 17,500 gallons per acre of catchment area; Orongorongo and Karori, 11,000 gallons; Waitakere, 105,000 gallons and proposes to store 214,000 gallons; Nihotupu. 252,000 gallons; while Huia will store 250,000 gallons per acre of catchment area. It is shown that Wellington with a total catchment of 15,840 acres stores 220,000,000 gallons, and Auckland with but 4,574 acres of catchment stores 820,000,000 gallons. This means that with not one-third of the area from which to collect water, Auckland stores five times as much. Over and above this Auckland is practically decided upon her still bigger dams below Nihotupu and Huia, and over and above that again there is the Taupo proposal.