CITY'S FIRST NEED.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1912, Page 2

CITY'S FIRST NEED.

ADEQUATE WATER SUPPLY. HOW WELLINGTON IS SERVED. COMPLETION OF HIGH LEVEL SYSTEM. (By "Autos.") What is a city' 6 first need? Is it ■wood-blocked and well-metalled streets? Citizens can rub along -without these. The people of Auckland still do sq. I* it trains? Citizens can walk, an they so will, and many walk still, as they did_ in the days before electric traction. Is it fine public buildings, museums, and libraries ? Life in a' city would be quite tolerable without these. Recreation grounds? Useful, but ihete is plenty of fresh air anywhere in Wellington. Gas or electric light? There are other forms of illuminarit; if gas failed or electricity broke down, it is conceivable that business and life generally might continue with the aid ,6f the homely kerosene lamp or candle. Surely it must be drainage. Look again to the City of the North; Auckland has done without thordugh drainage up to the present 2 though she has decided at last it may be worth while, even if it does cost money. No, the prime need of a city is none of these things. What is it, then? What is the first thing a hamlet budding into a borough demands? What i« it a city feels most the loss of? Why, water, of course. Take the case of Sydney just lately. They have what they call a water famine there — notice, they do not call it thirst, thbugh the breweries felt the shortage of the major constituent of the national beverage. No, water is wanted for more things than quenching thirst. The amount a person drinks of a city's water supply is infinitesimal compared with what he uses otherwise. What happens if the water supply fails or is curtailed? The morning, tub goesj for one thing. The mistress of the house cannot get through ncr washing properly. The garden dries up, and if, far worse, a fire breaks out, what is there to extinguish it? Nothing. It must have its way. Down in the city the trouble is accentuated. The streets go, unwatered and the dust fiend rages. Fire now is a triumphant enemy doing untold damage. The .conflagration on Lambton-quay five years ago, when the Wainui main broke down, is sufficient example of the prime necessity, to a city of water. Add to this that drainage without water is a loathsome foe spreading all manner of disease, and the case for an adequate water supply as the first necessity of a city is proved to the very hilt. Let us apply the argument to Wellington. Few cities have offered greater difficulties to the engineer in his task of providing citizens with sufficient water for their, daily needs. In the first place there was no catchment of water close at hand to guarantee an adequate supply to a. growing city. It was necessary to go far afield out to Wainui-o-mata, where rain falls abundantly and there are perennial streams affording water beyond the city's present needs. It was a great achievement for a city of the size of Wellington- in those days to bring the water in from. Wainui. It was an earnest of the civic enterprise which has always distinguished this city. For the time being, with tho reservoir at Karori and the constant supply from the Wainui river, the needs of the Wellington of the 'eighties and 'nineties were satisfied. .The .complete' system of drainage in the>loWer: levels in conjunction with ample water to flush the sewers gaye 1 Wellington even^then a title .'to one of the healthiest .cities of the world. \ .*.. ,- % -. Cheater Wellington... ; Then cam© the expansion of the first years of the present century. Melrose' came into the city and Wellington' became Greater Wellington indeed. The problem of water-supply and with it of drainage was rendered immensely more difficult by the inclusion of the rapidly populated higher levels of the larger city and its ring of suburbs. It was this fifoblem that the present city engineer I\lr. W. H. Morton) had to tackle ia the midst of the heavy task of providing" plans for other necessary services, to the new accretions. There were tramways, roadways, streets, drainage, but above all— water. How was water to be got up to Brooklyn — the first claimant — some 600 feet above the «ea*level ? height of the Wainui reservoir was only 420 feet, and Karori 463 feet, and water will not flow above its own level. It was a new problem and had to' be attacked in an engineering basis of the maximum good for the minimum cost. So the engineer planned with the most modern instruments to do the work. He found what he Wanted in the multi-stage centrifugal pump, then just being brought into practical use. An ordinary reciprocating pumping plant of. the' old type would have been exceedingly costly, both at tho outset for the plant' and again in the upkeep, for it would almost certainly have Required the services of a constant attendant. It was the elec-trically-driven multi-stage centrifugal pump that solved the problem. So the Brooklyn high-level reservoir was built about five or six years ago, away on top of the bill behind Brooklyn at a height of 732 feet above the sea level. Its capacity was 422,000 gallons. Down in the city below at the head of Epuni-street is the little pumping station with its electro motor driving rapidly the centrifugal pump, one stage coming on top of the other with cumulative effect and forcing the water up to the reservoir between five and six hundred feet above it. When the reservoir is full the pumip automatically "ceases work to start again when the level of water falls below a certain point. The system was extended io the new and flourishing suburbs of Kelburne and Northland with reservoirs of a capacity of 521,000 gallons 678 feet above the sea level. As in Brooklyn, drainage followed closely on the heels of water. The days of tanks^ and tank water and summer water famines weni^'by with no regrets. Arcady was no more in Kelburne and Brooklyn-'-thank Heaven, breathed the old resident. There was some water to put out fires, when they did occur. The bucket brigade was replaced by fire hose and the ' nozzle with 1501b -pressure behind it. But Brooklyn and Kelburne and Northland were not the only hill-top suburbs of the city. Koseneath had its ''castles in the air" with glorious views over the harbour and tank wate?. So water — after a long interval, no fault of the engineer and his staff — was sent up to a reservoir near the top of Mount 'Victoria, 608 ft high, 213,000 gallons capacity, and Roseneath and Hataitai were satisfied. It was one of tho Mayor's last ceremonies, before he left for Home, to turn on th& wat*»r for Roseneath. And now Melroee — the high levels behind Newtown Park — has been supplied from a reservoir 545 ft above the sea level and holding 178,000 gallons. Laßt in the series of hill-top suburbs to get its water is Wadestown, rejuvenated by its new tramway. Its reservoir, now filled, is the highest of all— 79oft abovO the harbour, right on the Tinakori Hills. Its capacity is 196,000 gallons. Residents need no longer write letters to the paper asking when they are going to get water. It is there. All they have to do is to apply to tho City Council for permission to connect. Thus Wellington's,, water supply sys-, tern for its lofty, cloud-piercing suburbs U now complete. Miramarit also well

forward with its service, drawn from the city mains. Meanwhile provision has had to bo made in main reservoirs to meet the vastly increased demand for Water by the citizens of the greater city. A new dam was built some five years ago above the old Karori reservoir, and 62,500,000 gallons of water impenned. Advantage has been taken of the surplus waters of Wainui to erect a great dam there, erstwhile- known ac the Solomon's Knob dam, but now dubbed after its designer, the Morton dam. The novel plan of this, with its steel reinforcements of the hollow concrete, has been described before. It holds about 100,000,000 gallons of water. To guard against the possible loss of the principal source of Wellington's water through a breakage o! the single old main, a new one is being (rapidly laid down. . The pipes are already past Ngahauranga on the way-* out to where the old main comes through the hills into the Hutt Valley. The _ new main v/ill debouch into a retaining reservoir now being' excavated at Bell-road, above the Nairn-street Reserve. And, lastly, it should not be forgotten that to meet the requirements of the citizens who reside in what might be termed the middle levels of the heights round the city, four 50#00gallon storage tanks, situated respectively at Botanical Gardens, Bell-road, Coromandel-street, and Hataitai, fed by gravitation at night, maintain pressure during the day in their respective districts. Truly, it is a magnificent system of water supply — one of which Wellington may' well be proud. It ie doubtful whether there is a better one anywhere^ in the world. It should suffice this city for many a year to come.