WAINUI AND THE HUTT BASIN

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 47, 25 August 1919, Page 6

WAINUI AND THE HUTT BASIN

'A. statement made by the Mayor appears to suggest that the proposal to bring water from the Orongorongo Stream, through a tunnel, into the Wai-nui-o-mata reservoirs, stands in abeyance, or takes second place to an effort to increase the storage capacity at Wai-nni-o-mata. With the latter end in view, foundations of a proposed new reservoir are being tested by boring. We had had an idea that the City Council was committed to the diversion of the Orongorongo water. If that is not the .case, the Mayor, w,e think, should make a detailed statement and explanation of what looks like an important change of policy, if not of resolution; and should give his reasons for believing that an increaie of water-storage is.preferable to an increase of running water. Meanwhile, without prejudice to the Wainui-o-mata and Orongorongo questions, it may be timely to take stock of the domestic water supply possibilities^ of three parallel valleys which are tributary to the Hutt—the Whakatiki, Martin's River, and the Upper Akata-rawa. Only the higher waters of the Akatarawa are still free from settlement, but a big proportion ,of Martin's River, and a bigger proportion of the Whakatiki, are yet in virgin forest, partly reserved and partly under private ownership. Even if these water supplies are not used for the next fifteen years, the time to complete the reservations of land, and the protection of forest, is now

The importance of the Hutt .tributaries is increased by the fact that, as the Mayor recognises, Wellington's principal residential extension must be along the line of the Hutt Valley.- Boroughs "in what might be called the metropolitan area " will, Mr. Luke hopes, " come into the big water scheme, and so obviate the necessity of spending money on smaller schemes that may not be attachable to the big scheme in the future. We should all look well ahead in. this important matter, and there are indications that, sooner or later, the metropolitan area will be a much larger one than it is at present, and policies affecting the fundamental needs of the people should be shaped .accordingly. I think that the Hutt and Petone should come into the scheme as far as the water is concerned,. and feel that they would be/much -better served by doing so." This is admirable in spirit, and even anti-amalgamationists should see the value of close co-operation in sjuch things as water-supply, drainage, and transport. A ■ more definite ,shape would be given to the co-operative idea if the local bodies concerned could, by • consultation and conference, reach some agreement as to the nature of "the •big scheme of the future." As settlement will increase rapidly in the upper half of the Hutt Valley, the Hutt tributaries cannot be ignored j and they may indeed become, in a time not very remote, the larger half of the comprehensive service which the Mayor foresees.