WHITE WATER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 11

WHITE WATER.

MOVE IN CAPETOWN.

CLARIFYING SUPPLY.

SAVING or £20,000 A YEAR.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) CAPETOWN, July 20. Within a month one-third of Capetown will be supplied with white water Hitherto the Capetown municipal water supply has been light brown 111 colour— almost exactly the shade of weak whisky and water—owing to discolouration by decayed vegetable matter in the streams and reservoirs from which the water is drawn. A filtration plant has been built to clarify all the water—supplying about a third of the municipality—from Table Mountain, and it will be in operation shortly. The council with then begin immediately with the erection of a plant to filter the Water from Steebras, in the Hottentots Holland Mountains 36 miles away, from which the city's major supply is drawn. Filtration was vigorously opposed when first projected, by conservative water drinkers who had grown fond of Capetown's tinted water. It seemed to them a waste of money to pander to fastidious people who wanted crystalclsar water. It appeared, however, that even after interest and redemption costs on the filtration plants are taken into account, white water will save the city at least £20,000 a year. The brown water is . slightly acid, and rapidly corrodes iron and steel pipes. Moreover, the vegetable ! matter in suspension tends to settle in [ the mains as a black sludge, making t frequent scraping and replacements necessary.