VISIBLE FROM AIR

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 34, 10 February 1938, Page 24

VISIBLE FROM AIR

WAIWHETU POLLUTED

SOCIETY'S PROTEST

•A film of oil over the Waiwhetu Eiver, extending for half a mile, was plainly visible from the air, wrote Mr. R. H. Nimmo to the Wellington Acclimatisation Society last night, under a December date. The source of the oil, he said, could be clearly traced to the Railway Workshops. Waiwhetu anglers had frequently voiced their annoyance with oil and acid. The writer had spoken to the manager of the shops about this, and he had been assured that the insertion of grease traps would deal with any effluent from the workshops. The Waiwhetu was one of the finest spawning streams round Wellington, v. ;■' Ranger P. W.Willson reported having inspected the Waiwhetu Stream on January 21 last. It was being polluted by waste.from the Railway Workshops.' Patches of oil could be seen for a quarter of a mile below" the bridge. Vegetation between high and low water mark had been killed out on the eastern bank through oil being driven up there in high westerly winds. He had inspected the stream since, and its condition was unchanged; it had lately been getting worse. ' ' "''"'■' The secretary of the society .(Mr. E. J. C. Wiffin) said that there ;had: been many complaints about the pollution of streams round Wellington, such as the Mangaroa and the.Karori. " It was decided to send a letter in strong terms to the Railway Department and the bodies concerned in the other streams mentioned.^