NORTH SHORE WATER SUPPLY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 43, 20 February 1929, Page 12

NORTH SHORE WATER SUPPLY.

The Wairau scheme has not been ••shelved," and the people of the North Shore will insist upon receiving a great deal more conclusive evidence of the undesirability of this supply than has yet been given by the Department of Health, before they will submit to the dictatorial unreasonable attitude of the Department or abandon the wonderfully cheap and effective system of augmenting the supply of water from Lake Pupuke, as laid before Shore Water Board by Mr. Dufaur. The Department have not, and dare not, challenge the feasibility of this scheme to augment the supply of water in the lako from the Wairau (reek, as they know perfectly well that there is enough water thrown into the sea by this creek in the month of June or July to supply the whole of the northern boroughs for a year, in addition to which we have a supply already in the lake of no less than 12,000,000,000 gallons, which is twelve times more than the holding capacity of the whole of the Auckland city water supplies. (See i Royal Commission's report, page 43.) ft must be admitted, therefore? that (here ii an ample source of supply along with that already stored in Luke Pupuke. The Health Department condemn the water of the Wairau because they say it is polluted, and they therefore could not permit it to run into the lake. Is )}]is water, however, seriously polluted, ami what standard do they accept as a standard of purity? It is a well-known fact that no water supply is absolutely pure. They must know that 70 per cent of the water supply for the city of London is taken from the River Thames, and where it is taken it is acknowledged by all authorities i to be a very highly polluted and dangerous water. Still, you can get as good a glass of water in the, city of London as you can in any city in the world. It is not the intention, however, and it would never be seriously entertained, <o throw tho raw water'from the Wairau Valley into Lake Pupuke. The proposal is to tap the Wairau Stream at a point above the Wairau. Road, and by a proper system of intake chambers and sterilising plant this water'oan be made absolutely safe. It would be interesting to know why the Department of Health are so insistent upon blocking a scheme of this sort when they know perfectly well that the water in the Waitakeres, which they recommend the boroughs to procure, is treated in this way at the Waitakere dam for the reason that it is not fit, and was proved to be not fit, for human consumption until so treated, and the elaborate system of Candy niters was established at the Waitakere dam. As I have mentioned the London water supply, I might state that the chairman of the London Metropolitan Water Board, Sir Alexander Houston, is looked upon as the greatest authority on domestic water supply throughout the world. It would be interesting, therefore, to refer to an article written by him for the "Lancet" of January 2, 1926, on page 29. Tn discussing the utilisation for domestic purposes of water of a doubtful origin, he refers to the great progress that has been made by rendering impure waters quite safe for human consumption, and he states that one-seventh of the population of England has been, and is, drinking, with impunity, highly putrified water derived from sources of questionable origin, and if the absence of bacillus coli is to be taken as implying the absence of microbes of waterborne disease, this organism can be practically eliminated by storage and filtration, and if chlorination processes arc super-added, absolutely destroyed. In face of this great authority, I contend that the objection to the use of the Wairau , Stream to augment Lake I'npnke is absolutely groundless. J. HISLOP. fWe have been obliged to shorten this letter considerably.—Ed.]