Appeal for more water information

Press, 1 August 1977, Page 12

Appeal for more water information

An appeal to well-drillers to submit information about their wells to regional water boards has been made by the vice-president of the Catchment Authorities’ Association (Dr W. R. Holmes) in his opening address to the national conference of the Drillers’ Federation in Christchurch. Drillers were the richest

source of information available to a regional water board, but decisions based on this data would only be as good as the information provided, said Dr Holmes. He asked drillers to submit their well logs, aquifer location, and yield data to their local water boards.

Drillers and regional water boards should co-operate for their mutual advantage. “You as drillers are charged to fill your clients' water requirements and to do this you must know where to drill and what yield you may expect. We as a regional water board must administer and investigate natural water,” said Dr Holmes. “Your day-to-day data are a special complement to our

: activities, and they must move together.” Dr Holmes, who is also chairman of the North Canterbury Catchment Board, said that an increasing public awareness of water quality meant that more research had to be done in this field. A related field was investigations into water that could not be seen.

He said that there were many myths and superstitions about underground water, but few facts. “It is difficult to measure what you cannot see, but we are attempting to build up a profile of the underground water of Canterbury. "The natural resource of Canterbury is its underground water,” said Dr Holmes. Few communities the size of Christchurch had such a resource of clean water. People who criticised the board’s efforts to investigate and use underground water in Canterbury had not considered the cost of a water treatment plant—“perhaps a Town Hall or Q.E. II Park each year, to treat water for Christchurch,” he said.