CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9670, 8 December 1909, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor.

Sir, —£ read in this morning's paper a notice of warning from the Borough Engineer to persons using water for irrigating their gardens, threatening divora paine and penalties. I think I have read a similar notice emanating from the sam e quarter last year, in fact it's a perenniai notice depending on the atata of the weather (or rainfall), and carries no fear to the transgressors. Now, to give effect to the threat it would require a large number of inspectors and informers, and lead to unprofitable results. I would suggest to the Borough Council a simple and profitable alternative, viz., to sell the water by meter, which would have the effect of stopping useless waste by mending faulty taps, and not allowing water to run all day and night in lavatories. If the meter syst?m is adopted, the price of water per thousand gallons could be reduced to 3d per 1000 gallons, and leave a large margin of profit to repay for the outlay on cost of meters, to duplicate or enlarge the pipes, and to make the mechanical plant for pumping the water. The. rates could be struck as at present, and ratepayers could use the water irrigating their gardens, and would only have to pay over and above the amount of their rates if their meter shows the quantity used exceeds it. If this course were adopted the Borough Council would be in a position to supply the ratepayers with a pure and copious supply of water for domestic and irrigating purposes at very little above the present rates. —I am, etc., METER.