OVERLOADING OF SEWERS

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27726, 2 August 1955, Page 9

OVERLOADING OF SEWERS

OUTLETS DISCHARGE INTO AVON

Sewage flowed from two emergency outlets on either side of the bank into the Avon near the Fitzgerald avenue bridge yesterday afternoon. The chief engineer of the Christchurch Drainage Board (Mr E. F. Scott) said that rain and a saturated soil had combined to make the sewers overflow. The board was going ahead with new works to remedy the matter and was pushing them ahead as fast as it could. “Sometimes it is very bad, but I have never known it as bad as it has been in the last fortnight, ’* said Mrs A. Vaughan, whose house is only 30 yards from the outlet on the north bank. Mrs Vaughan is an elderly resident and has lived in the house iSm. she was a child. “The growth of Christchurch has been phenomenal and the board' has been quite aware of the position and realised that a major work to relieve the situation was necessary,” said Mr Scott. “During the war years certain minor works to give temporary relief to certain areas were done. The only way to get over the difficulty is to get the relief sewers functioning and the work that has been accomplished to date has shifted the incidence of grave flooding from roads and streets and people’s yards to the Avon. . “The major works in hand and nearmg completion are the answer to the problem and when our new pumping station m Sandilands goes into operation a very substantial improvement in the situation should take place. The cause of the present overflow is the rain on Saturday, following a fairly wet winter, and the ground conditions are such that the sewers cannot just take it,” he said. “This emphasises the board’s anxiety that there should be no delay ,in the construction of the northern relief sewer by the shortage of funds,” said the chairman of the board (Mr H. P. Smith). “We have been aware that this happens with heavy rain and it can only be cured by the construction of the northern relief.”

No comment was made by the District Medical Officer of Health (Dr. D. P. Kennedy).