HOW MUCH WATER DO BOROUGHS WANT?

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 190, 1 November 1927, Page 14

HOW MUCH WATER DO BOROUGHS WANT?

WAITAKERE SCHEME NORTH SHORE REQUIREMENTS Each of the North Shore boroughs is to estimate the amount of water it will require under the Waitakere scheme and give the details to North Shore Boroughs Water Board. The Water Board is out to get a clear idea of the financial obligation of the scheme. At the board’s meeting yesterday, the following motion, passed at a conference of councils, was submitted and passed: “That approval of the board’s proposal to proceed with the Waitakere project as a major scheme be expressed and that it be urged to fully investigate all figures of the cost to each borough.” Mr. E. Aldridge, the chairman, said that the people would wish to know what the water would actually cost at the tap. There was a question whether the board should deal with the supply from a wholesale or a retail point of view. LAKE PUPUKE WATER The medical officer of health submitted a bacteriological report on W’ater samples taken from Lake Pupuke. Samples taken from the intakes of the Birkenhead and Devonport pumping stations were reported as colourless, with a small amount of earthy matter. “At Devonport and Northcote stations,” the officer continued, “free chlorine was easily demonstrated in the water after passing through the pumps, but at Birkenhead station w r hen I first tested the water I found that free chlorine was not in evidence. On looking into the matter, I found that the chlorine solution was not being admitted properly to the supply. “This was due to the fact that the permanent man was away from the station and his substitute was not fully conversant with the details of the attention needed. The incident rather tends to show that it is not wise to be dependent entirely upon chlorination for a permanent water supply. It may be all right for temporary measures, when it will probably be used for a short period only, but when it becomes a routine matter the human element is apt to creep in.” Replying to the board’s proposal that the Government should take over the land surrounding Lake Pupuke, the Minister of Lands stated that the work was not such that Government moneys could be expended on it, and it was therefore impossible for him to make a favourable recommendation to the Cabinet. The whole question of acquiring the land was for the local bodies affected. A loan scheme to be placed before the ratepayers was .recommended in a letter from the Takapuna Borough Council. It was decided to reply that the board was investigating the position.