COMING LOAN POLL FOR CITY WORKS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 223, 17 June 1936, Page 9

COMING LOAN POLL FOR CITY WORKS

Schedule in October SEWAGE & STORM-WATER PROBLEMS So far the big Wellington municipal loan mentioned by the Mayor (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop) at Vogeltowu on Monday evening as likely to be submitted to ratepayers in October next has not assumed definite schedule form. Hie various spending committees of the City Council (mainly works and reserves) have been considering certain works which they find they are unable to undertake out .of revenue. Of these works the most important and costly is the renewal of old sewage drains in the city, some of which have been doing duty for some forty years and aie worn out (on the bottom). Onlj lecently Mr. E. R. McKillop. assistant citv engineer, exhibited in his room samples of these old cast-iron pipes, which had been down in the earth for over thirty years. While the top and sides of the pipes were still thenoriginal thickness (about an inch) the underneath sections had been thinned down to about an eighth of an inch by detrition. When a drainage pipe gets as thin as that it cannot lie relied upon to stand the pressure put upon it by the periodic play of those blasts of compressed air which force the sewage along to the point of ejectment at Lyall Bay east. A great many of those points have been found to lie faulty, and simply have to be replaced as soon as the money is made available. , , On the occasion of the last municipal election the ratepayers favoured a loan for the building of a new stormwater- culvert from Adelaide Road to the harbour at Clyde Quay. Bor some years past periodic upheavals of the woodblocks on the streets flanking the Basin Reserve, north and south, have proclaimed the fact that the existing storm-water drains were inadequate. They are now being replaced by the largest culvert in Wellington city, which is calculated to take all the storm water likely to fall in the watershed served. . But Kent Terrace and Adelaide

Road are not the only points in the city affected by surplus storm water, anil in the interests of safety and convenience it Is desired to make proper provision for effectively dealing with the whole trouble, which may mean a further loan. Other works, perhaps not quite so urgent, have been discussed by committees, and it will be for the ratepavers to decide whether or not they are worthy of support—and an increase in the rates. The Mayor has announced publicly that the loan schedule will not be submitted to the ratepayers until October.

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