WAIKATO WATER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 246, 18 October 1933, Page 6

WAIKATO WATER.

I lived in Takapuna for fifteen years and. although away from t'lie district now I still 'hope to return to live. But when Ido I hope I will not have. to drink water from the lower reaches of the Waikato. I am nowliving in Hamilton and have been there five years, and in my "business as a builder have had quite a lot of chances of seeing most parts of the Waikato districts, especially the low-lying parts in and around Orini and the Maungawara stream, which conies into the river below Taupiri. All the pigsties and cowsheds drain slowly into their respective shallow drains and finally into the Waikato River, and all or most ofl the low-lying swamp and slime beds follow each heavy rain into the proposed Auckland water supply, Cambridge sends all its overflow from its septic tank drainage into the Waikato. We in Hamilton take it into our large filtration tanks and filter it, and our Hamilton septic tank drainage is passed on also into the Waikato. Later on, I expect Ngaruawahia and Huntly will also have a similar drainage into the Waikato, and the slowly flowing waters carry it along. Now if the water could be brought direct from the lake at Taupo there could bs no better scheme in New Zealand. I consider the tipper reaches of the Wairau stream far better than the Waikato below Taupiri, and from there on I would call the Waikato River the septic tank for the Waikato district, and I would advise North Shore to think very seriously before considering any scheme other than sharing with the Auckland City Council, which is always looking for the best methods of supply, for it is the most important thing of all. W. T. SNOWDOX.