THE WATER DIFFICULTY. IF RAIN DOES NOT FALL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 45, 22 February 1908, Page 5

THE WATER DIFFICULTY. IF RAIN DOES NOT FALL.

Exercise for people who usually use lifts is likely to commence next Monday, for the level of the water at Wainui-o-mata is now within two inches of the three foot subsidence mentioned in the special resolution of the City Council which authorises the cutting off of "extraordinary supplies" of water. The preliminary process will be a simple one. An advertisement will be inserted in the .local newspapers that the water supply is no longer available to all those persons referred to in tho special resolution, and if, after, such notification, any one is detected or suspected on sufficient grounds of using the supply under prohibited conditiors legal proceedings will bo taken immediately. Laundries iind dye works are not included in the resolution, nor arc those firms whose supplies from the water mains are only needed for setting in motion machinery which uses the ono lot of water over and over again. The pumping of engines at Levin and Company's and ax> IS. W. Mills and Company's — also tho hydraulic lifts on the wharves — are cases in point. They draw fresh water from the mains, but there is a special pumping plant established in connection with them that Teturns the water U Ll.eir valves over and over again. Ihe fact ;hat the Harbour Board 'uses gome two millions of gallons of water per month has given rise to an impression that the cranes were abnormally wasteful of th© water, but as a matter of j fact a very large proportion of the Har- i bour Board's total is obtained for supply to ships which come into port, A list of the properties to be affected by tho prohibition is being made, out, but as yet no definite estimate has been made of the quantity of water likely to be saved daily. Gardens, bowling greens, fountains, smithy blasts, lifts, ejectors, and hydraulic motors are in the terms of the prohibition.