CITY WATER USERS SUFFER FROM SUMMER SHORTAGES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 37, 13 February 1943, Page 4

CITY WATER USERS SUFFER FROM SUMMER SHORTAGES

Year by year Aucklanders are warned against the use of the water, for which they pay very handsomely, just at the time they need it most. The city dweller pays his special license, and about the time he takes his hose out of the tool shed he is told that the supply in the reservoirs is short, or that the pipeline will not carry enough for the city's requirements, and is urged to put it away again. It is only for a few weeks in the year that a hose is needed, and the householder pays his pound so that he may be able to keep the growth moving during the hot, dry months. Appeals not to use hoses, with the threat to regulation, are the almost invariable accompaniment, and this year there has been an official warning that water for gardens may have to be prohibited, while it has also been urged upon householders that they should exercise economy as a war effort, possibly because the camps are being supplied.

City Selling Water While private users are being thus cautioned the city seems to have water to sell in plenty, for in addition to the extra demands which it is stated have been imposed by greater industrialisation in the Westfield and surrounding districts outside the city boundaries, the whole of the North Shore, which is also outside the Auckland City Council's limits, have been supplied to the extent of 1,250,000 gallons a day. Citizens who have borne the cost of the water supply, and who pay heavy rates and other charges for its use argue that they should have first consideration, and many strong Protests have reached the Auckland tar against the warnings and appeals for the sparing use of water at the only time when there is any return at all for the amount paid in hose and sprinkler licenses. At the very time people were being asked to exercise every economy the sprinklers were going strongly in Albert Park,' and they were necessary if the park is to continue to have some semblance of a civic garden.

Metropolitan Scheme Needed The Auckland City Council has recognised that something more is required than has beeij already done, and reports are now being prepared on the question of augmenting the supplies available. The war may have created difficulties in the matter of pumping plant and pipelines, but the contention of those who pay, and are called upon not to make use of the facilities for which they have paid, is that their needs should have been attended to before the city went afield in search of cash customers outside its area, whose requirements should be considered by a larger organisation than the City Council, familiar with the demands of the whole area which it will serve, and not concerned with selling to bodies not included in its own charter. It is stated that the reports to the council Avill shortly be ready, and that momentous decisions will then be made. It is time either that they were made and the supplies augmented, or that the imposition of a license fee for hoses which cannot be used because somebody else i§ buying the water should be removed. First City Supply The development of Auckland's water supplies may be briefly reviewed. In the early days, wells and springs on the foreshore served the small needs of Auckland. The first water scheme was in 1869, when the

Government laid a six-inch main to the ponds in the Auckland Domain, and two small reservoirs were built on the hillside near the present site of the Soldiers' Hospital. A few years later Auckland experienced a drought, and an auxiliary supply had to be drawn from a well in Khyber Pass. The next step came in 1877, when the city's needs were drawn from the Western Springs, a supply which sufficed Auckland until 1900, when the Nihotupu Stream was tapped. As the years went on there was steady development on the Waitakere Ranges, including the building of dams on the Nihotupu, Waitakere and Huia streams with a total holding capacity of 1.569,000,000 gallons. Since then there has been considerable expenditure in connection with reticulation, but not on headworks. Much Controversy The water question affects not only Auckland city, but its contiguous _ boroughs _ and districts, where, in some instances, minor schemes are not fully meeting summer requirements.

Over the years there has been much controversy as to what major scheme should be gone on with. There has been strong support for a supply from the Waikato River. Its advocates point out that the headwaters are on the shoulder's of snowclad Ruapehu in the middle of the island, and that on their way it flows through Lake Taupo, which has an area of 238 square miles, and an average depth of 400 ft. There have been proposals that the big lake should be used to provide water by gravity for a big portion of the Auckland province. There have been ,other proposals that the river should be tapped at some point further north, and a recent suggestion is that a good site would be near Cambridge, where, at Karapiro a new hydro-electrical scheme is being carried out. This scheme includes the making of a large lake, stretching up the river almost to the present hydro-power works and lake at Arapuni. Karapiro has the advantage of being much closer to Auckland than Taupo, the distance being approximately 100 miles.

In pastiyears the flow of the Waikato River has varied considerably, particularly in the summer months, but the position has changed since steps' were taken by the Government to raise the level of Lake Taupo to augment and regulate the flow of the Waikato when required. Hunua Next Watershed? It seems probable that the Auckland City Council will give serious consideration to the Hunua Ranges as the next step, for although two more dams could be built on the Waitakere Ranges, no further gravitation supplies can 'be obtained from that area.

Surveys have T>een made at Hunua, and the City Council owns a large area of forested country there. The main streams, which flow to the Waikato River near Mercer, are the Mangatawhiri and Mangatangi. The latter is the larger stream, with an estimated dry-weather flow of 10,000,000 gallons daily. The dryweather flow of the Mangatawhiri is estimated at 4,000,000 gallons daily, making the total dry-weather flow of the two streams 14,000,000 gallons, compared with a dry-weather daily flow in the Waitakeres of about 3,000,000 gallons. There are also smaller streams on the Hunuas which might be diverted and used. Trial surveys have shown that it would be possible to build dams on both the Mangatangi and Mangatawhiri streams, the one on the former with a holding capacity of 3,000,000 gallons.

The largest clam on the Waitakeres is the Huia, with a capacity of 536,000,000 gallons. Compared with the Waitakeres, the Hunua Ranges are much more extensive in area, and a large amount of the forested country has already been set aside for water conservation. Already the Auckland City Council has spent over two millions on its water supply, an amount which includes reticulation. In 1914 a provisional committee of a proposed Auckland Water Board was set up with a view of obtaining water from either Lake Taupo or the Waikato River. On three occasions a private bill was prepared for presentation to Parliament, but on each occasion there was considerable opposition, and the final recommendation was that, if the proposal was to be carried into effect, the control should be in the hands of the interested local bodies. In June, 1927, a commission sat in Auckland and exhaustive evidence was taken in regard to potential supplies. The recommendation of the commission was that the next step should be the' development of the lower Nihotupu Valley with a dam, and, following that, subject to survey, exploitation of the Hunua Ranges, before going to the Waikato River. It is possible that controversy will again arise as to what major scheme should be gone on with, but it is likely that the next supply will be sought south of the city. One reason is the remarkable industrial development in the Westfield and adjacent areas, and it is likely that that development will continue.