The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1929 “A TREMENDOUS NUISANCE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 605, 6 March 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1929 “A TREMENDOUS NUISANCE ”

THERE was some essentially plain talk at the meeting of the 4 Harbour Board yesterday on the sewage pollution of Auckland’s great waterways. One comment alone served to describe all the sources of disagreeable conditions. This was the statement of the chairman, Mr. H. R. Mackenzie, that “Orakei sewage was becoming a tremendous nuisance, and that it was time to call on the Drainage Board to abate it.” The harbour authorities might well have said that it was long past time for demanding an abatement of a foul nuisance that has already given Auckland an unenviable notoriety for septic beaches, contaminated public swimming baths and other disagreeable pollution. It gives pleasure to nobody to discuss these blots on a civic environment which Nature made beautiful though man has marred it, but it does no good for anyone to remain silent about it and pretend that conditions are really not so bad after all. Time and again the Health Department has drawn attention to the need of cleansing reforms. Indeed, it was due to that department’s appreciable aativit.y that the Harbour Board has been influenced to pass resolutions on the question, aiming at improvement. Two officers representing the Health Department and the

Department of Public Works have investigated the situation and made recommendations about it. To begin with they have made it clear that there is undoubted necessity to take in hand the question of the pollution of both harbours. That should dispose of any excuse for delay on effecting hygienic improvement. The investigators recognise that the first step toward the achievement of reform must be the grouping of the various local bodies concerned and—to use a word as blessed as Mesopotamia—to co-ordinate all the different schemes already in operation. In other words, what is wanted first is direct, comprehensive control and the performance of work by one administrative hoard on the best lines of economy.

Perhaps the most important recommendation made by State departmental officers is that which deals with the very core of the pestilential problem. This is the question of the best system to be adopted in the future for the disposal of an expanding city’s sewage. It is plain to anybody that any continuation of the present systems of disposal would merely aggravate the danger of an existing nuisance. Recognising that the expert investigators suggest that the present engineer to the Auckland City and Suburban Drainage Board, Mr. H. H. Watkins, should be sent on an investigational tour of Great Britain, Europe, Canada and the United States of America in order that he might secure sufficient advanced knowledge to enable him to design a scheme for the enlarged Auckland and Suburban drainage district. This recommendation is favoured in preference to importing an expert from the Old World who would not he familiar with Auckland conditions.

Most people will agree with the principle of giving a local man the best opportunity of acquiring personal knowledge abroad of the most modern methods of sewage disposal. It has been suggested that the Drainage Board should at once accept the responsibilty for summoning other local bodies for a conference on the subject. The suggestion is rather belated, for such conference has already been held, although it did not go as far as to devise a scheme, hut it is at least still collecting constructive information.

After all the problem can be reduced to the'simple question as to whether Auckland should not consider the advisability of adopting chemical means for the disposal of sewage. Other countries make a great deal of money out of chemical treatment, and no other country has greater need than Auckland has for an abundance of cheap fertiliser.