WAINUI ROUTE

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 134, 9 June 1919, Page 10

WAINUI ROUTE

THE DEVIATION SCHEME

EFFECT ON CITY SUPPLIES

EVIDENCE BEFORE INDUSTRIES

COMMITTEE.

When the Industries Committee was taking evidence in the Wairarapa evidence was given by Mr. Coleman Phillips on the subject of the Wellington milk supply, the proposals for deviating the Rimutaka railway, and the water supply. After commenting on the present shortage of milk for the city, Mr. Phillips stated that he had urged upon Mr. .t. P. Luke (Mayor of Wellington) that the first step to take in obtaining an ample and sweet supply of milk was to get tho Rimutaka railway deviated via tho Wai-nui-o-mata, when he could, if the council wished, acquire land for a city milk farm at tho lake end of the two tunnols. This deviation would enable thejj Feathcrston factory to run 6000 gallons of milk, voluntarily, swoot and fresh daily into town, quite free from smoky tunnels, in a hour and a- half, in place of three hours and a half to four hours, and a constant succession of tunnels. Mr. Luke liad, said Mr. Phillips, condemned this proposal because it would wreck the city's water supply; but the witness held that the deviation would in fact vastly increase the water supply. On the subject of the BAmutaka deviation itself, Mr. Phillips urged tho advantages of the Wainui route, which involved a tunnel from the back of tho Hutt racecourse towards Day's Bay, up to the Wainui Reserve and then under the Orongo-orong-o. Mr. R. W. Holmes, Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department, had said of this route that it was "the only deviation that would allow him to run an express service out of the city." Mr. W. H. Booth had expressed the opinion before the Commission that only a small minority of Wairarapa people favoured the Wainui deviation, but that was not so. For nearly twenty years past. Masterton, Carter--tonj Greytown, and Martinborough. had. all openly favoured the deviation via the Tauheravikau. But to-day they all said (excepting Greytown), that they would be guided by the opinion of the Government engineers, and as they all knew Mr. Holmes's opinion, the case for the Tauherenikau route was clearly "down and out." A petition was being signed in Featherston in favour of tlie Wainui deviation. ■

Mr. Luke was apparently troubled, stated Mr. Phillips, by the fear that the water supply might be contaminated by dirt from the trains on the half-mile section of line alongside the Wainui reservoir; but the plan could surely be altered to shorten that section or it could bo drained clear of the reservoir.

Mr. Phillips also gave evidence respecting the possibility of bringing water from the Orongo-orongo to Wainui via the railway tunnel, so as to 'supplement the city supply. The Wellington City Engineer had resolved four or five years ago to secure the Orongo-orongo supply, through a separate tunnel from that required for the railway, to Hnia Creek, so as to avoid any d&nger to the travelling public, from the water being in the railway tunnel; but nothing had been done. Mr. Luke had recently expressed his intention of immediately starting the water tunnel, and making it, if possible, a traffic tunnel. "But why four years should have been wasted by the council in not bringing in the (Orongo-orongo supply quite puzzles me. It appears only one piece of the do-noth-ing policy that has characterised Wellington's doings- in regard to all its great public industries." The witness said he could not understand why Mr. Luke should object to the railway deviation, and yet should propose turning the water-tunnel' into a traffic-tunnel. Mr. Phillips referred also to the possibility of tapping the Wairongamai Stream and Wairarapa Lake by way of the railway tunnel. He mentioned his early proposals for extending the deviated railway across the lake via Martinborough, Tinui, the Weber Valley, and Dannevirke, to supply the first section of the ''great trunk East Coast line" from Wellington to Auckland. This would open up.a practically houseless area of excellent dairying land measuring 150 miles by 40, and capable of accommodating ten thousand dairy farmers. The, East Coast was now almost a terra incognita, held as sheep-runs, whose fences had remained unaltered for almost 40 years ' pa-st- , .

"Your Commission could not increase New Zealand's production and industry more readily and immediately," said Mr. Phillips; "than, by recommending that this section of the East Coast line be at once taken into consideration, and the Wainui deviation made. That line, when made, will almost double the size of Wellington. city, so great will be the increase of population upon it. and so great a volume of East Coast traffic will flow into the city from as far north as Gisborne, where Auckland's trading in fluence naturally comes in."