SOOT-COVERED WATER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 205, 30 August 1926, Page 9

SOOT-COVERED WATER.

AT TEPID BATHS. COMPLAINT OF PATRONS. To enjoy a splash in the Tepid Baths and then emerge from the water sprinkled with spots of soot is not likely to be appreciated, and it is not at ail surprising that patrons of the baths who indulge in their daily clip arc complaining. Portion of the roofing at the tepid baths is wire-netting, the object of this being to provide ventilation and light. Before the installation of tepid water the roofing offered little room for complaint, but the heating plant placed a different. complexion on the baths and the soot from the plant chimney, also from steamers and mills, is continually dropping through the wire roofing until to-day there is a thin film covering the swimming pools.

So bad has it become at both the ladies and men's pools that numbers of patrons lately have, after seeing the water, decided not to bathe, and have had their money returned. Not only the pools, but also the walls of the building are spotted and the -possibility of clothing getting spoiled is not likely to encourage bathers, particularly tht fair sex.

To provide tepid water for the two pools means burning from six to eight tons of coal, and 'on more than one day last week, the pools had to be emptied because of the amount of soot flouting on top. Some alteration is necessary to the roofing, and the suggestion is that the roof should be on the same principal as those in other parts of the Dominion, or, what is better still, a portion should be in glass.