CITY SERVICES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 193, 16 August 1941, Page 6

CITY SERVICES

I TXTIL supplies of steel for pipes and machinery for pumping are available the provision of a permanent water supply for the Auckland metropolitan area, however large the city may grow, is impossible, but the ultimate necessity should be kept in mind. The suggestion, already made in these columns and supported at the meeting of the Suburban Local Bodies' Association, that supplies be ultimately taken from the Karapiro dam should be the subject of co-operative consideration between the Government and the Auckland City Council. The dam will impound a large lake. Will it be large enough to run all the essential electricity production units and leave a sufficient margin for city requirements? If it will not, the raising of the height of the dam and the acquisition of a larger area for the lakebed should be considered as a safeguard for the future. While this should be discussed at once, the question of establishing a water board is as Mr. I. Goldstine pointed out on Thursday, an entirely different proposition. The city has not grown to an extent which threatens a predictable shortage from the City Council's available sources, and if. was demonstrated clearly enough by the Auckland Water Commission inquiry in 1927 that there was nothing to be gained from the formation of a water board merely to take over the assets and supplies of the City Council. No new local authority should be formed now, but, as Mr. Goldstine suggested, the foundations should be laid for the after-war organisation of one metropolitan board of works to take over all the administration of essential services, including water, transport, power and lighting, hospitals, and even milk supplies. That cannot be put into effect until after the war, but even now it is possible to do a little towards clearing the road for an economical system as soon as the pressure of the war effort is relieved.