Visit By Water Expert

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32306, 26 May 1970, Page 20

Visit By Water Expert

An American expert I on water resource management is this week visiting Christchurch, where he will study the Waimakariri River catchment area, study protection work, and discuss groundwater studies with officials at the University of Canterbury and with the Geological Survey of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

He is Mr T. Maddock, a senior scientist in the branch of general hydrology of the United States Geological Survey. Mr Maddock is at pre-

sent ending a 10-day tour of New Zealand organised by the Ministry of Works. In Christchurch he said that while in New Zealand he had looked over water “problem areas” such as the Waimakariri basin, not

with the intention of making immediate recommendations but to see the problems at first hand and then on his return to the United States to see what experience of similar problems might be of assistance.

Mr Maddock said water had been his business for almost 35 years. “In the United States we have a number of problems with water and of varying degrees of severity,” he said. As a whole the nation had no basic shortage of water but there were a number of problems, some national and some regional. Perhaps the most prevalent was concerned with water pollution of many kinds. Such pollution could change the principal characteristics of water and cause changes to the biology of an area. Another problem dealt with the quality rather than with the quantity of water. Mr Maddock said he was pleased at the considerable interest now being shown in ecology. “Mind you, I don’t expect the same excitment in the subject to be with us this time next year. You cannot maintain that amount of interest so intensely over an extended period of time.” He said the interest, however, would have a beneficial [result, with organisations being created to take care of problem areas.

“What is done will depend on the costs involved, and the importance of a problem in relation to other problems that have to be taken care of,” he said.