The Press WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1964. Sumner Pollution

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30559, 30 September 1964, Page 16

The Press WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1964. Sumner Pollution

The Health Department's report on the polluted waters round Sumner beach could not have been more conveniently timed for the purposes of the Labour Party candidates for the Christchurch Drainage Board at its elections next Saturday. The report has enabled Mr N. E. Kirk, M.P., to announce his intention, a few days before the elections, of seeking a requisition under the Health Act, though it is obviously impossible for the present board to take any action to stop or reduce the pollution before the elections, or even to decide what can be done. Before electors condemn the present members of the board for failing to provide for the danger, they should consider whether the board could reasonably have foreseen the present situation. There has been no rapid expansion of housebuilding at Sumner in recent years to account for the newly-discovered pollution; Sumner’s population rose only from 4445 to 4733—6| per cent—between the 1951 and 1961 censuses. Increased sewage pouring into the sea from the Scarborough outfall can surely not account for the increased pollution of the sea. A much more likely cause is the change in the ocean bed and currents off Sumner since 1951. Apparently, the tides and currents which previously carried the Sumner sewage offshore can no longer be relied on to do so, though to establish the precise flows of currents and sewage is a difficult and expensive task, complicated by the possibility of further changes in the ocean bed and foreshore.

While the population of Sumner rose by 6j per cent the population of Christchurch city as a whole rose 13.4 per cent. Two of the fastest-growing areas in the city were Northcote (105 per cent) and Hoon Hay (335 per cent). These are the two areas where the Drainage Board has spent most of its substantial borrowings since 1951. Had the board not pressed on with work in these areas there might well have been more than isolated cases of hepatitis and other infectious diseases caused by lack of sewerage. Does Mr Kirk suggest the board should have halted its reticulation programme in the western and northern suburbs and diverted money and men to Sumner to meet a development it could not foresee?

The board’s chief engineer (Mr H. F. Page), in reply to a correspondent of “ The Press ”, said it was the board’s intention to take all sewage from Sumner, Redcliffs, and Mount Pleasant to the Bromley sewage treatment plant. Mr Page describes this as a major work; unofficial estimates place the cost “well into “ six figures ”. The cost will not be grudged by Christchurch ratepayers who prize Sumner beach as one of the more pleasant summer resorts within easy reach of the city; and the work should be put in hand as soon as possible; but not to the detriment of new housing areas.