ALL-NIGHT REPAIRS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 112, 13 May 1937, Page 5

ALL-NIGHT REPAIRS

ANOTHER SEWER BREAK

If any doubts have remained as to the urgency of the work of renewal and modernisation of the city sewerage system—and it was suggested by certain opponents of the loan proposal that the urgency had been overemphasised—the occurrences of the last,few days should end such doubts. Within-a week there have been two serious breaks, the second occurring late on Tuesday 'afternoon in a main which runs from the'corner of Wakefield Street to a main serving the Cambridge Terrace and Oriental Bay areas. Again, the repair men worked right through, and the main was put into commission again at 5 o'clock yesterday morning, but it meant that for ten hours the sewage from those areas had to be divertedyto the harbour. X

The length of main replaced was in much the same- condition as other lengths lifted recently, worn thin, softened and corroded by chemical action, but over and above the general weak condition, it was split from end to end..

Plans for the work are complete, and a start has been made wherever possible, but certain delays are still inevitable pending agreement between property owners and the Corporation as to access to properties in which shafts will be sunk to expedite the driving, of thj tunnel north and south under the city. It is hoped that those preliminaries will be disposed of with a minimum of delay, for no real improvement can be made to any part of the system until the tunnel is completed. Ev.en when all legal and other preliminaries have been disposed of ihe construction work will occupy from three to four .years.