More Water for the City

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 261, 25 January 1928, Page 6

More Water for the City

HUNUA RANGES INSPECTED Ten Million Gallons Running THIRTY miles to the south, into a country baked in the drought and dotted with bush fires, Auckland City councillors yesterday went to view two streams likely to provide water for the city in the future.

fTHE day was a long one, the party ot about 30 leaving about 8 a.m. and reaching the city again after 5 p.m., the distance travelled being just under 140 miles. In return for an arduous day the party saw as much of the Mangatawhiri and Mangatangi streams as one stop at each place allowed, the mountainous country (requiring a heavy capital expenditure) which surrounds the creeks, ate a pleasant al fresco meal, and inhaled several cubic yards of dust. ANOTHER HILL PROPOSAL The sources of these two streams are in rough, hilly country almost due east from Papakura, and the creeks discharge into the Waikato River near Mercer. In the event of their being converted into sources of water supply for the city, much of the necessary catchment area will be under virgin bush, but a certain amount has been cleared. The object of the visit was to enable the council to discuss water proposals with some degree of local knowledge QUESTIONS FOR COUNCIL The questions to be decided by the council will probably fall under three heads:— (1) Whether to proceed with the Lower Nihotupu pumping scheme in the Waitakeres; (2) Whether to leave the Waitakeres on completion of the Upper Huia, now under construction, and pash the southern scheme, which will be known as the Hunua Ranges scheme; or, (3) Whether, to proceed with Lower Nihotupu and, at the same time, make a start with at least the preliminaries of the Hunua scheme. During discussion on the visit it was mentioned that Lower Nihotupu could probably be completed in two years, and its storage would enable

some 6,000,000 gallons a day to be drawn off, but it would, in dry seasons, add nothing to the supply from running streams. The cost would be near the quarter of a million mark. It will merely store overflow from the main Nihotupu dam. The first step in the prosecution of the Hunua scheme would be the purchase of some 8,000 acres of land, to which will be added about 2,000 acres now held as a water reserve, and the complete surveying of the area and the pipe line to Auckland. Preliminary expenses were roundly stated at £IOO,OOO, and these preliminary steps will occupy at least two years. Joining up the two schemes and bringing the water out on the city side of the hills involves two mile tunnels, one between the proposed dams, which are separated by a ridge 1,000 feet high, and one from the Mangatawhiri Valley, which is separated from the Wairoa River, along which it is proposed to bring the pipe line In the direction of Auckland, by a similar ridge. PLENTY IN ADVERSITY The party saw the creeks under the most adverse conditions, after a prolonged spell of dry weather, the only rain, in the past month at least, having been one fall of one-tenth of an inch. The proposed site of the Mangatawhiri dam is at the foot of a wide shallow valley, mostly under grass, and through this runs the stream, on a shingle bed. It has been running a steady 3,500,000 gallons a day for weeks, the only change being after the fall of rain, when It went up to over 4,000,000 gallons, and returned again to the Si mark. The only difference in the Mangatangi Stream Is in volume, and it is steadily maintaining 7,000,000 gallons a day.

Between the two streams they are providing 10,500,000 gallons