CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 85, 11 April 1933, Page 14

CORRESPONDENCE.

POINTS FROM LETTERS.

NORTH SHORE WATER,

Mr. R. P. Worley should really be more careful in the. presentation of his figures , in connection with the solution of the . water problem on the North Shore, or . people will not put much faith in his "correct facts" as against my "fantastic figures." This matter might well rest until definite loan proposals come for- • ward, were it not that some Jew may be 1 misled by Mr. Worley in fair comparison of costs between the Waitakere supply, and the proposal which he calls "the only sane and possible scheme so far propounded." Mr. Worley accuses me of wild guessing. He has already wrongly stated the City Council's charge to be 1/6 per 1000 gallons at the Waitakere dam, and now in his letter of March 30, without acknowledging his error, he sidesteps this very material point in the comparison of costs by declaring that the Water Board estimates the cost at 2/3 for the completed scheme. The water board has never put the cost above its engineer's estimate of 1/SA. Tlius it would appear rather futile to pursue this discussion further until Mr. Worley sub- j mits proof of the correctness of his assertion that water from the Waitakere source would cost 3/0 per 1000 gallons; or acknowledge that he has made two serious miscalculations. An explanation is also due, how, in Mr. Worley's opinion, Birkenhead can shoulder the "small" sum of £30,000 for his scheme, when the North Shore boroughs collectively are unable to face £150,000 for an alternative proposal. In the estimate of costs for the Waitakere scheme as drawn up by Mr. E. Powell for the Water Board and checked by the Royal Commission, a charge of QJ per cent is provided to cover interest, sinking fund and maintenance on the capital value of the works, apart from the reservoir, for a supply of 365,000,000 gallons. To obtain a fair comparison the same annual charges must be made on the Lignite stream proposal, which at a capital value of £30,000 for a demand of 44,000,000 gallons works out at 1/3J for interest, sinking fund and maintenance alone—not at 1/ inclusive of everything, the figure given by Mr. Worley—to this must be added the cost of pumping, chlorinating, etc., as well as 6 per cent on the value of the catchment area, and such little incidentals as the Waitemata county rates on six or seven hundred acres of land, and this for the requirements of only a 50 per cent increase in population. I imagine it must be quite pleasing to Devonport and Takapuna to learn from Mr. Worley that the adoption of his scheme for Birkenhead would leave the lake free for their use, especially with added encouraging information that the water is growing steadily worse, and that, should the level continue to fall, no manner of sterilisation or filtration "will prove effective. E. C. WALTON.