Mt. Eden Has Nearly Impossible Task

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 328, 13 April 1928, Page 1

Mt. Eden Has Nearly Impossible Task

DIFFICULT DRAINAGE THROUGH SOLID ROCK The beauty of the Auckland volcanic cones is one of the proud claims of Aucklanders. The view from Mt. Eden, for instance, is world-famous. ■\TET few who came to admire have any conception of the problems that the civic authority controlling this residential area has to solve in applying town-planning ideas to the stone flanks of the massively bulky Mt. Eden. Roads Had to be chopped out of solid ridges of lava, water mains traverse trenches painfully excavated from rock, while house builders have made a virtue out of necessity and the stone cleared from sections in orded to make gardens lias been utilised for building walls and fences. COMPREHENSIVE SCHEME The most courageous effort of Mt. Eden Borough Council was the adoption of a comprehensive drainage programme. The plan is now nearing completion after continuous work since 1918, and the expenditure of about £220,000. The borough engineer, Mr. J. Rogers, after a survey of the borough, submitted a scheme of sewering that would handle both drainage from houses and from rainfall water on the lower slopes where the rock under the deceiving green grass holds the waters as in a reservoir. The councillors were dismayed at the prospect of running sewers through almost solid blue-metal, in parts 40 feet thick, but after due deliberation undertook what is generally admitted to be the most difficult drainage job of its kind ever put in hand in New Zealand. With the early finishing of the main line contract which tunnels under Dominion Road and the commencement of another section to carry sewage from the east side of Mt. Eden Road, the borough will have finished its main sewer programme. Already two-thirds of the residential districts are connected with the mains. An inspection of the works was made yesterday by the Mayor (Mr. E. H. Potter), Mr. A. M. Bryden (Deputyfiyor), and Mr. W. W. Woolley, airman of the Works Committee. The big job in hand by Mr. S. T. Dibble (contractor), which runs from St. Albans Road to the Kensington Road area, will clear the region from Mt. Eden Road to Kensington Road, and carry storm water and sewage; the former will be poured out into Meola Creek while the sewage will discharge into Cricket Avenue sewer. This important drainage artery will allow the City Council to effectively drain about 100 acres Epsom. Mr. Dibble’s contract calls for the expenditure of £27,600. Very shortly another drainage line is to be constructed by the Auckland and Suburban Drainage Board, with the co-operation of Mt. Eden, Mt. Roskill and Mt. Albert. It will put an end vo the storm water troubles and sewage problems of the Dominion Road terminus and Edendale district.