COX'S CREEK DRAINAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 48, 25 February 1910, Page 7

COX'S CREEK DRAINAGE.

CITY ENGINKKR IN EXPLANATION. The question of the drainage of Cox's j Creek was raised at the City Council meeting last night by a communication from the Town Clerk of Grey Lynn. The suburban Council asked in effect that a conference between its representatives and representatives from the city should meet to discuss the question. The City Council have already refused or shelved this request, and the Grey Lynn Council asked that this decision be reconsidered. A report was received from the city engineer with regard to the same subject. He said the statement that he was opposed to any measures being taken for the improvement of the nuisance alleged to exist at Cox's Creek did not correctly describe the attitude he had adopted, as the Council's engineering adviser. When the matter was first brought under his notice in connection with the Jervois Gully sewer he advised that action should be deferred until the settlement of the main drainage scheme . should enable him to determine the lines 1 and levels of the intercepting sewer to ultimately receive the drainage o. Jervois Gully. Once these data were obtained he was prepared to .jiroceed with the work when authorised. Plans had already been submitted to the Council, and the engineer was prepared to proceed with the work when authorised; and he was prepared to start work to. «:ost about £1000 immediately. In July, 1908, he had suggested various alteration£,Jor dealing with the nuisance: inter alia, an open concrete culvert in Cox's Creek, itself some 2000 feet long, and a reinforced concrete or masonry closed culvert of similar length. At the time both schemes were felt both by the Borough and the Council to be impracticable. Thtrn a suggestion was made by the Borough engineer to construct an open timber culvert large enough to carry off the storm water draining into Cox's Creek and running from the Grey Lynn sewer outfall to the N.W. side of Cox's Creek Bridge, at a cost of between £3000 and £4000. Drs. Valintine and Purdy then reported that, although that scheme was valuable as a temporary method of dealing with storm water, it was not sufficiently valuable from the sanitary' point of view of the district adjoining the creek to justify the expenditure. The engineer also said that, if the only desire on the part of the borough and city was to provide means of carrying off sewage at present discharging into- the Creek and discharging it instead on the N.W. side of Cox's Creek Bridge, he could suggest a far cheaper method of constructing a timber flume of 2300 feet in length from the present outfall of Grey Lynn 21in sewer to N.W. side of Bridge to cost, exclusive of connections, about £1150; that cost would have to be borne iproportionately "by the city and the borough, and cost of connections borne by the Council working them; that from a sanitary standpoint, the scheme would be qrrite as effective as the other, but it would have no value beyond the period when the main drainage scheme was completed; that 335 acres of the city drain into the Creek and 620 acres of Grey Lynn, the proportion being 35 per cent to 65 per cent; that ho has held it to bo his clear duty to advise tho Council as to what, in his opinion, was the sanitary value of any scheme put before them, and to prevent them paying an undue proportion of the scheme pro» pounded by the borough. The committee recommended that the extension of the city sewers as previously determined upon be proceeded with at once; and that the proposals contained in the City Engineer's report be submitted to the Council, with a recommendation that the same be sent on to the Grey Lynn Borough Council for its consideration.

Councillors Parr, Tndehope, Thompson, Bagnall and Mennie spoke in approval of the committee's proposal, which was agreed to. In view of this decision of the Council, a conference was not con-. side Ted necessary in the meantime.