Dispute over airport flow

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32439, 28 October 1970, Page 15

Dispute over airport flow

The Christchurch Drainage Board and the Christchurch Airport Authorities (via the City Council) although not hostile have been at loggerheads over an underground flow from the airport complex.

The Drainage Board is responsible for the “conveyance and treatment of sewage from the airport complex” and charges for the service by measurement of the “flow” in “thousands of gallons per day.”

The board in 1968 asked the City Council to install a “permanent recording device in the Wairakei Road sewer near Russley Road” to measure the flow of sewage at the .City Council’s expense, and obtained quotations for a suitable instrument.

To date, it was reported at the Drainage Board meeting last evening, the City Council had made no firm decision to install the recording device. In the meantime, it costs the board money to measure the flow (for one week of each month) and a difference of opinion between the Airport Authority and the board over the exact flow has arisen.

The authority, through the City Council, has paid the board $6980.26 for the 196869 year on the provisional charge of 100,000 gallons a day of sewage from the airport.

The board, on its own measurements, found that the flow in 1968-69 from the airport was 181,440 gallons per day, or 83 per cent greater than the previous years and 63 per cent greater than the subsequent year, and accord-

ingly wrote to the airport authority claiming an additional $4205.37 for that exceptional (from a sewage point of view) year. The airport manager (Mr A. I. R. Jamieson), replying to this claim, quotes figures of water gallonage pumped at the airport from April to August last year, and includes measurements of ground water levels during

the same period in 1968. He argues that when the water table level is high, more water goes through the sewer.

Mr Jamieson said that he was unable to recommend to the City Council payment of the $4205.37 additional payment, but suggested that while it could be argued that an increase might be justified, 50 per cent of that

amount would appear to be a reasonable compromise. The board, in accepting the compromise, decided to write to the' City Council drawing its attention to the board’s costs involved in measuring the flow and pointing out that the charge levied by the board was considerably lower than would have been the case if the airport was rated. The engineering staff informed the board that not as many measurements of the flow were taken in 1968 as were taken last year, and that was one reason why the board’s works committee had decided to recommend the compromise. It would cost the City Council about $5OO plus installation work, to put in a recording meter, the board was informed. The board decided that the City Council should be requested to install a flow meter.