Underground Sewers Had Opposition

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 29 (Supplement)

Underground Sewers Had Opposition

One of the less spectacular works required of any progressive city is drainage and sewerage. Christchurch’s story in this field is one of continuing progress from difficult beginnings when the early settlers were opposed to underground sewers. The 1000 acres chosen for the site of the city in 1850 was generally a dry and slightly elevated spot compared with the surrounding district, much of which w y as swampy and low-lying.

\\ hen the City Council was constituted in 1862 it took over many’ unresolved drainage problems and from 1864 onwards the suburban areas were taken over by a number of road boards, but they were unable to agree to any great extent either among themselves or with the council on any common scheme of drainage. although all recognised its necessity.

With this lack of unanimity of thought not much was done. L'nlevelled roads, often above neighbouring land, acted as embankments and prevented stormwater g e 11 i n g away. Much of the land was waterlogged, and by the middle ’seventies lack of drainage had become so acute that it was obvious that a remedy was needed.

The central Government eventually intervened in 1875 and set up the Christchurch Drainage Board.

The new body lost no time in appointing a consulting engineer and drawing up a scheme of drainage. When the report was presented in 1877 the public reacted strongly against the idea of underground sewers. So a British consulting engineer was engaged to submit a scheme, and he converted the ratepayers to a programme of under-

ground sewage sewers and some stormwater sewers as well. This was the start of a system which has spread out from the centre of the city to cover the whole city area, the borough of Riccarton, the county of Heathcote, practically all Waimairi county and parts of Paparua and Baisweil counties, giving the board a district of 112 square miles. Apart from its neverending programme of sewerage works, the board has been engaged in land drainage, and now that the sewer reticulation programme has caught up with the post-war housing boom, greater attention is being paid to improving land drainage. Floods in the past caused much greater damage than recent floods, and this demonstrates the value of the earlier works. The “great flood” of 1868 occurred when there was an overflow from the Waimakariri river into the Avon. It rose with great rapidity, and water entered houses in Worcester street. The Magistrate’s Court was surrounded by two to three feet of water and the Mayor’s pri-

vate room had water at least two feet deep.

Never since has there been such a flood, and while there is still a potential danger of flooding from the snow-fed Waimakariri, works on that river have been maintained, continued and extended, first by the board of conservators which was appointed shortly after the “great flood,” then by the Waimakariri River Trust and in more recent years by the North Canterbury Catchment Board. The Drainage Board, with

more than 554 miles of sewage sewers, no longer has to use its powers to compel householders to connect Today sewerage is demanded by the people; once it had to be forced on them as a community health necessity. But sewerage and drainage are a continuing responsibility, and the board has plans for the future, looking to the day when there will be a metropolitan area with half a million people.

Among its plans are improvement of the Estuary, and at present the Estuary is being studied on a model at the Hydraulics Research Station in Wallingford, England. This is primarily to see how the area can be improved to improve in turn the drainage system; but a secondary aim is to make the Estuary an aquatic playground and possibly having a road across a barrage dam connecting the seaside suburbs of New Brighton and Sumner.