WATER SUPPLY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 102, 2 May 1930, Page 8

WATER SUPPLY.

SUBURBAN BODIES' SCHEME. ANOTHER BILL THIS YEAR. PIPE-LIXE FROM. MERCER. According to Mr. E. H. Potter, Mayor of Mouirt Eden, an Auckland Provincial Water Board Bill- will be introduced again at the next session of Parliament. The original plan, embodied in a local bill presented in Parliament in 1927, was to set up a board and develop sources of supply independent of . those controlled by the City Council. The latter body opposed the measure and it was withdrawn. Later, a commission was set up, and its report was in favour of allowing the City Council to develop its existing ■sources. Last session a second bill was introduced, but it had to be withdrawn owing to the requisite notice under the standing orders not having been given. Mr. Potter, who is chairman of the committee representing the. local bodies which are behind the scheme, said yes-" terday that much more engineering data had been collected since the commission had eat. It was reliably estimated that it would cost £700,000 to tap the Waikato River at Mercer, construct a. pipeline to Auckland, with a reservoir at Bombay,' and provide the necessary pumping plant. Arapuni, and not Lake Taupe, had now been proposed for the second part of the scheme. Expert advice had been obtained and it was estimated that the .surplus water from the spillway would be enough under any conditions to supply a population running into millions.