POLLUTION OF HARBOURS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 605, 6 March 1929, Page 16

POLLUTION OF HARBOURS

BECOMING A NUISANCE BOARD TAKES ACTION ‘‘There is ne doubt that sewage in the harbour is becoming a nuisance, and it is time we should call upon the Drainage Board to abate this nuisance,” said Mr. H. R. Mackenzie, chairman of the Auckland Harbour Board yesterday afternoon, when a report of the board’s drainage committee was under consideration. A letter from the Minister of Health forwarding a copy of a report from the district engineer, Public Works Department, and the medical officers of health approved of recommendations made by the committee of inquiry for the vesting in drainage districts of the control of drainage schemes having their outlet into the Waitemata and Manukau Harbours. The board looked upon the early settlement and completion of a comprehensive system for dealing with such drainage schemes as essential to prevent the pollution of the waters and beaches of the harbours; and recommended that the Minister be urged to conclude negotiations with the local bodies concerned for the formation or extension of drainage boards as a first step toward having such a comprehensive system carried through. It was further recommended that as the discharge of drainage into the harbour at Orakei had, in the opinion of the board, become a nuisance, the Auckland and Suburban Board be called upon to take such steps as may bo necessary to abate the same, and that, owing to the continuation of the nuisance from the Narrow Neck sewer, the Devonpo.rt Borough Council be asked to submit without delay plans, already promised, of the proposed extension of the sewer. The recommendations were adopted.