The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1929 RESERVOIR REVELATIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 619, 22 March 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1929 RESERVOIR REVELATIONS

DEFECTIVE organisation and what may be termed sheer obtuseness on the part of several persons closely concerned have been shown by Mr. F. W. Furkert to be root causes of the collapse of the Mount Eden reservoir. That the City Council has managed to retain its complacency in the face of the polite, but severe indictment of its slipshod system is not, in the light of its past performances, in any way surprising. The Waterworks Committee has been quietly authorised to meet claims arising from the accident, and the usual vote of chivalrous confidence has been passed. It is highly improbable, however, that the public will feel the same degree of confidence. Mr. J. A. C. Allum mentioned sympathetically at the council’s meeting last evening that he “had had the most unhappy ten minutes of his life” acquainting the officers concerned with the conclusions reached by Mr. Furkert. If the officers expected anything else, they" must have been super-optimists, as even preliminary inquiries after the collapse of the weakened wall must have given them more than a rough idea of the factors responsible. Not being qualified engineers, the waterworks supervisor and the pumpman, to whom came instructions for precautions that seem to have lacked any pretence toward exactitude, are really the least blameworthy of those whom the report touches. But how qualified professional men could permit a culpably ignorant City Council to disregard outside warnings and place vital structures in the care of an unqualified man —how they could do this without emphatic protest—is as mystifying now to the public as it perhaps was to Mr. Furkert. And how anyone could permit the withdrawal of supporting earth from the wall of a reservoir that was designed principally as “a lining to an excavated hole” is more mystifying still. This action combined with the other causes of the failure might, but for the merciful accident that the collapse occurred before the day’s work began, have precipitated serious loss of life and caused the indictment of the system, the council and its officers on charges far more serious than Mr. Furkert was called upon to investigate. It is not being unduly pessimistic to suggest that the terms of the report are sufficient to disturb confidence in all the structures of the city waterworks scheme. Indeed, after pointing out that the fracture at Mount Eden was founded on a fault —the fault of insecure original plan—and that some of the inadequate reinforcing rods had been severed by corrosion and the lapse of time, while stress on others had seriously attenuated and weakened them—after directing attention to these facts, Mr. Furkert concludes on a cheery note by suggesting that “careful investigations should be made of the remaining reservoirs.” Of regard for its own security the public will cordially endorse this recommendation. Meanwhile, there remains the fact that no assessment of the loss through damage to property has been presented. By a happy dispensation the bulk of the damage was centred on municipal property, and was rectified in terms of labour and wages. But there will, no doubt, be substantial xorivate claims—including that of the Mount Eden Borough Council—as well as an adjustment with the contractors for the new dam. The total to cover everything must inevitably be very heavy, and the final reckoning will place this on the shoulders of the city ratepayers. Since the council has virtually exonerated its staff, the ratepayers have no one left to blame but the council. It is a sad world for people saddled with incompetent municipal administrators.