TEST OF CITY BATHS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 301, 12 March 1928, Page 1

TEST OF CITY BATHS

All to be Investigated MENACE OF HARBOUR POLLUTION THE charge that the condition of the Parnell Baths is partly attributable to operations of the Public Works Department is made by the City Council in reply to the Health Department's indictment, which was followed by the closing of the pool. “Alive to its responsibility, the Baths Committee is having the water of all the baths, as well as samples from various parts of the harbour, subjected to searching bacteriological tests,” said Cr. J. B. Paterson, chairmain of the committee.

TT will be some time before the resuits of the tests are known. Instructions had been issued, said Mr. Paterson, for samples to be taken at once.

Since the Parnell development, the Baths Committee has inspected both the Shelly Beach and the Tepid Baths. It is including these pools within the scope of the investigation it now proposes to make into the whole question of baths control. In the face of the Health Departments pronouncement and in the light of to-day's knowledge, the committee does not assert that conditions at Parnell have been ideal. But it is not prepared to shoulder all the blame. There is a suggestion that the general matter of harbour pollution should be investigated, along with the baths question, as the subjects are undoubtedly interwoven. Any impurities in the waters of St. Mary’s Bay, Judge’s Bay or Hobson Bay may, under present contions, be considered to have more than an even chance of being represented within the swimming pools, as well as in the open water. HEALTH DEPARTMENT’S CHARGES The four complaints made by the Health Department against, the Parnell baths are: (1) That the baths were dirty: (2) That the water was impure; ■ (3) That the intake was in an unsatisfactory condition; (4) That the towels had not been boiled or washed. Numbers two and three of the above indictments are more or less interdependent. The list is amplified by a Parnell resident, who lives just above the baths, and was a regular attendant until their condition kept him away. He says: "In November the Public Works Department, working with a grab to deepen the channel, so that yachts and launches could pass between the embankment and the baths, broke the pipes which carry water to the baths. As a result, the water, instead of coming from the end of the pipes, in open water beyond the embankment, has entered the pipes in the dirty channel between the embankment and the baths. Usually the baths are filled on the flood tide, but if the valve is left open after the ebb starts, then the scour from Judge’s Bay, where the state of the beaches is rapidly becoming worse, is soon reflected inside the baths. General complaints have been made concerning the number of jelly fish seen (and felt) in the baths this summer.’ It has been stated that Mr. R. H. Packwood, engineer to the Public Works Department, reported the breaking of the pipes to the City Council, but was informed that replacement was not desired. Any knowledge of this was denied this morning by Mr. Paterson, who said that not until Saturday morning did he know anything about the broken pipes. In any case, he thought it was the department’s duty to make good the damage. SALT WATER ON TOWELS The towels hired to patrons of the baths are distributed under a private arrangement with the caretakers, the hiring out of towels and costumes being one of their perquisites. Mr. Paterson said salt water on the towels made them go black and grimylooking, no matter how often they were boiled. He had been assured that the towels were boiled regularly. However, the system was apparently not satisfactory, and the money to improve it would simply have to be paid by the ratepayers. He said that when he made the statement, "As far as I know there is nothing wrong with the baths,” to a newspaper reporter on Friday afteinoon, he did so in good faith. Not until later in the day did he learn of the Health Department’s report, and he considered that, under the circumstances, he had been the victim of misrepresentation. Further. he thought that Mr. U. J. D. Mahon, acting-headmaster of the Grammar School, who had received letters from parents and had advised his boys to keep away from the baths, should have passed his information on to the Baths Committee. SWIMMERS PROTEST BATHS NEVER PROPERLY EMPTIED Mr. F. Harley Devereux, in a letter to The Sun, comments as follows on the baths situation: “Mr. A. J. Entrican is reported to have said that “the baths were supplied from the harbour by a pipe leading: right through underneath the embankment to the open water, but all the same he thought some water came into the baths from the enclosed tidal basin surrounding them.’ * Some water!’ Hoes not Mr. Entrican know that for months past every drop of water in the baths has come from that same tidal basin? At about the time when the bottom of the baths was concreted (largely thanks to The Sun’s support of swimming enthusiasts’ demands in this direction) the pipe referred to by Mr. Entrican was broken off flush with the outside wall of the baths—immediately beside a large pile of filthy and slimy mud which had been thrown out of the baths prior to the concreting work being done. No action has been taken to repair this pipe, with the result that every time the baths are filled large

quantities of this foul and slimy mud are sucked into the baths through the broken pipe. That so many bathers ha\o suffered from ear and nose troubles through using the baths would not have surprised the Pa»-ks Committee had it inspected the baths yesterday, when only a few feet i C water remained in the deep end of the baths. On the surface of this expanse of water was an ill. odoriferous slimy scum—a congealed mass of the

same scum that is so frequently found over the whole of the water in the baths. ' “Is it to be wondered at that the Auckland public is exceedingly bitter against the council owing to the latter’s determined efforts to prevent the constructions of up-to-date swimming baths at Point Chevalier by Oixieland, Ltd.?

“I presume that, in the lace of this latest demonstration of the council's total absence of ability in properly managing swimming baths, it will not continue with its proposal to ask the sanction of the ratepayers for the expenditure of over some £ 1 S»fOO at Point Chevalier upon the constructor of municipal baths. Apart from the fact that Hixieland, Ltd., is still anxious to build its proposed b\t!i> free of cost to the city, the council can harcly expect the ratepayers to sanction the expenditure of £15,000 of their money when the council’s own witnesses stated definitely to the recent commission that municipa.’iv controlled baths were inevitably a losing proposition. POOR ACCOMMODATION

“Before closing this epistle, may I mention one or two other points concerning which great public indignation has been felt. The first of th?se is the disgraceful lack of proper dressing accommodation at the Parnell baths. It is not uncommon for more than a thousand men to be swimm rg in the baths at one time —to say nothing of women and children. The men’s dressing accommodation consists of ei ramshackle iron shed with six one-man cubicles, and a number of rusty nails and insecure hat-hangors fastened to ihe wall-. There are two shower-baths and or> lavatory, and. we claim to be the most up-to-date city in New Zeala.nd! Su< ! > conditions would not be tolerated f«*r a moment: In the other cities of ♦»!«■ Dominion Incidentally, does the council know that even in Napier, where this water for the municipal baths is obtained from the open oc f -aii such water is filtered before it enters the baths?” “The last point I wish to mention is the manner in which the caretaker at Parnell has been overworked, and the totally inadequate staff of th« baths. The unfortunate cartaker has for years been expected to handle pei - sonally everything connected with th** running cf the baths —to say nothing of preventing drowning accidents. Until the recent establishment of a voluntary life-guard system by the Pax - nell Amateur Swimming Club, the council apparently considered that an\ bather foolish enough to drown should at least wait until the caretaker was not occupied/ in selling tickets to th«usual long queue of would be mudsplashers I ”

An official of the Parnell Swimming Club called at The Sun Office to mak«* a statement which largely confirms the charges made by Mr. Devereux. The club’s official stated that tli#» baths were never properly emptied, and so could never be cleaned. Th»* mass of black mud dumped over the wall of the baths should have been taken away in barges instead yf left where it was. It was the accumulate 1 filth of years, removed before the baths were concreted, but now washed back every time the pool was filled. “We have been trying for years to have things improved,” he said. DOCTORS DIFFER CHANCE OF SKIN DISEASE Doctors differ as to the possibility nf skin infection through bathing at the Parnell Baths. Where one thought bathing under such conditions involved great risks, another disagreed* The latter stated: “There is no risk of catching skin diseases from the water of Parnell Baths. Salt water itself is a mild antiseptic, and waterborne infection, as regards skin diseases, is practically unknown* Bathing in small canvas baths is common aboard ship, but ringworm and other skin diseases have not been conveyed from one person to another, even in such small, confined pools. “Staying in the water too long, by lowering the resistance of the person concerned, has perhaps made throat or other infections more easily picked up. Gastric trouble, also, occurs chills, or through bathing too soon after a meal.- Salt-water baths should not be blamed for these*, however, as •throats’ and gastric troubles are com* mon among non-bathers.’’