COX'S CREEK DRAINAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 37, 12 February 1910, Page 4

COX'S CREEK DRAINAGE.

It is much to be regretted that the City Council at its last meeting persisted in ite refusal to discuss with Grey Lynn the question of draining Cox's Creek. We have already stated the case at some length, and we need hardly say that absolutely no argument was adduced on Thursday night to shake our conviction that in the public interest this pestiferous fever-bed needs prompt attention from the authorities. <A letter addressed to us on the subject -by Mr. Wsrrnook points out that the Mayor of Auckland is entirely wrong in staiting that only two sewers from the city area drain into Cox's Creek. The fact is that the creek receives three from Grey Lynn and five from the city; and as we have already explained, the chief danger to public health arises from the two City sewers which flow into the upper course at the creek? The channel so far up cannot >possibly be flushed by the tide; the mud flat is being constantly saturated, and the atmosphere poisoned with the filth from these open drains; the local health officer has declared that such a vendition of things is a dangerous menace to public health; and yet in spite of all this the City Council refuses to move- All 'that the people of Grey Lynn ask for is the expenditure of a relatively small sum of money, of which they are ready to pay their share, so as to defend the residents of the district against .what is manifestly a dangerous public nuisance. The facts are indispuftalble, and Mr. Meanie committed a serious error in judgment as well as in taste when he suggested that the agitation over Cosfs Creek had been worked up by local property holders. The reasons fox accepting the Grey Lynn proposal for a conference .were pat ably and forcibly by Mr. Parr, and we consider it most unfortunate ihait his arguments failed to oonvinco the majority of the City Councillors. To us it is simply astonishing that the City Council should fail to realize that it is the health and safety of the <sity—no less than of Grey Lynn, that is at stake, and we hope that the Public Health Department will proceed to express an opinion on the subject without delay.