Board may dig temporary drain at Brooklands

Press, 28 August 1986, Page 9

Board may dig temporary drain at Brooklands

The Christchurch Drainage Board may dig a temporary drain to remedy flooding at Brooklands. The board’s chief engineer, Mr Peter Hunt, said a pump was already being used to drain Harbour Road. A second pump was brought in yesterday to help clear water from private properties. The board’s responsibility for draining floodwater did not normally extend to private properties. On this occasion, however, the Waimairi

District Council’s health inspectors had been concerned that a health problem could develop, Mr Hunt told a board meeting last evening. The board will meet council representatives today to discuss putting in a temporary drain, either along Harbour Road or across private property. Such a drain could cost about $20,000, he said. A board member, Mr C. H. Russell, said one cause of the flooding was the comparative levels of the water-table and private

properties. Mr Maurice Carter said this was not the first time the board had been called on to solve drainage problems, which had arisen through planning permission being wrongly granted. Local councils should look more closely at possible problems at the building permit stage. Bromley smell The smell from the Bromley sewerage works could be reduced in three

weeks when the cover for toe No. 1 trickling filter was completed, the board was told. A board member, Mr R. B. Wright, had criticised the delays in solving the odour problem which had affected parts of Christchurch for 15 years. He promised to “shout” other board members a bottle of champagne when the cover was finished. On being told by another board member that the cover would not totally solve the odour

problem, Mr Wright said he was amazed and staggered. Christchurch people had been told that the cover would eliminate the smell and create a better environment If this was not the case, board members “should not be here for the following meeting," he said. The board’s chairman, Mr Newton Dodge, replied that all the board had ever said was that the cover would treat the major cause of the odour.