DRAINAGE SCHEME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 223, 20 September 1935, Page 6

DRAINAGE SCHEME.

WILL IT END POLLUTION?

(To the Editor.) i The particular phase of the drainage scheme that is troubling many people jg; Granted that the outfall is removed, at great expense, to Brown's Island, will that ensure that the pollution of the harbour and beaches will be stopped? Will the removal of the outfall guarantee the removal of the menace? There will be a very much greater volume of sewage to release —including, it is proposed—■ much trade refuse from Westfield, and whether at Orakei or Brown's Island, the fact remains that it .will be released into the harbour, and I doubt if there has been enough investigation of currents and winds over a long enough period to prove that this refuse will be carried out to sea without contaminating the harbour and beaches. Currents run in all directions round this island and affect the Tamaki and all the beaches there, Islington Bay, Home Bay, Motuihi, Waiheke and Eangitoto. In certain winds and tides much of the sewage from Orakei drifts over to Rangitoto, and who can say that by removing the outfall any difference will be made? It is stated that the sewage will be treated. It is treated now, and unices it is passed through septic tanks and thus purified it is still sludge when it is released. The chances are that after all the expense of removing the outfall and worka conditions will in no way be bettered owing to tho possibility, during certain tides, of the contamination of a greater number of beaches, to say nothing of the oyster beds. Some of the principal beds lie 011 one or more of the channels to the open sea. If our sewage cannot, because of expense, be taken away to the West Coast, why not copy London and several other larpje cities of Britain and take it away out to sea in hoppers? It could then be pumped into tliem from the existing outfall. DOUBTFUL.