CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 40, 17 February 1943, Page 2

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

WATER SUPPLY

To the Editor. You state In your article that the city has already spent over £2,000,000 on its water supply, which must only be termed a temporary supply needing daily attention by an analyst to prevent bad water reaching the consumer. It now appears the city is looking towards another temporary supply from the Hunua Ranges at an estimated cost of one and a quarter million pounds to bring in water that can be little or no better in quality or quantity than the present city supply, which has to be chlorinated to kill possible germs detrimental to health. Many consumers would rather chance getting bad water and boil their drinking water than use chlorinated water which must be more or less detrimental to health. Nature has endowed Auckland and province with the finest water supply of any city in the world, but the Waikato River has been allowed to run to waste at the rate of over two million gallons per minute, whilst the city fossick about for a temporary supply from the Hunua Ranges, which supply when completed would lock up large areas of land and destroy homesteads and farms suitable for returned soldiers' settlement after the war. Those taking water from the city by meter know the high cost of the supply, the lowest rate being 1/ per 1000 gallons, and the highest around 3/6 per 1000 gallons. The completed scheme for a supply from the Waikato River has been estimated at over £1,000.000, and would cost the consumer 6d per 1000 gallons. C. A. WHITNEY.