CORRESPONDENCE

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 86, 13 April 1926, Page 16

CORRESPONDENCE

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

G.H.L.—AII the figures contained ir your letter have been published more than once. WATER FOR NORTH SHORE. (To the Editor.) Sir, —The report of the Auckland Citj Council meeting of April S. 1026, state's that the city is prepared to supplj water to the North Shore from tlu Waitakere dam at a royalty of 6d pc: 1000 gallons, unfiitered. if the water is available. The city has been drawiur 3_ million gallons daily from Waitakere which is not suffifficient to eke out tilt supply from Nihotupu and about 1_ millions of doubtful water have had tc be lifted from the Western Springs. When the Waitakere dam was constructed it was designed to retain all the water that would come into the catchment area in a year of normal rainfall. In 1919 the dam overflowed only once, for a period of a few minutes, so that except in years of extra heavy rainfall it will not be possible to augment the quantity of water retained by the dam; lifting the dam 16 feet or IGO feet will not put water into the catchment area. The City Engineer told the Rotary Club that Auckland was so pushed for water that the raising of the Waitakere dam was an urgent makeshift measure, and he might have added that the work is to be done with £80,000 of the £300.000 borrowed for Huia. and that not very long ago he reported to the City Council that provision had been made to supply the city with water until 1940. In years of very heavy rainfall it may be possible to impound, behind the Waitakere dam. some of the winter rains, but it would be overstating the position to say that three-quarters of a million gallons per day would be available. Seeing that the city is now short of water, how is the North Shore to get its demand of three-quarters of a million gallons supplied from Waitakere, unless the water is carried up in buckets and placed in the impounding area? Moreover, thiß wild cat scheme for North Shore means that a £200,000 pipe line has to be laid from Waitakere to the Shore; the cost of this, plus 6d or 7d per 1000 gallons royalty, plus 6d per 1000 gallons reticulation charge, will make the cost of water to Shore residents over 2/- per 1000 gallons. As shown above there will not be any water in the pipe for six months in the year under the most favourable circumstances. If the real reason for raising the Waitakere dam is to further the -wild cat scheme of supplying the Shore from Waitakere, then it is a fraud on the city ratepayers.—l am, etc., ■T. WALSH. Devonport.