LOWER HUTT WATER

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 150, 22 December 1945, Page 6

LOWER HUTT WATER

PROGRESS OF NEW SYSTEM Eight miles of major water mains, ranging in size from 6in to 21in, for the new reticulation system to be introduced in Lower Hutt on the completion of the reservoir now under construction in the Western Hills above Naenae, have been laid throughout Lower Hutt in the past two years. About four miles of pipe are now required to complete the major distributing system. The new system, the cost of which is covered by a loan of £160.000 raised by the Lower Hutt City Council in 1941, entails a network of larger mains with Waterloo as the main distributing point, and a new pumping station near the Hutt Railway Workshops, containing five automatic electric pumps, which will pump direct into the reticulation system, and during the night will replenish the new reservoir. One of the largest pipes being laid is the 21in main from the pumping station near the workshops, to Waterloo, from where subsidiary pipes will carry the water to the city area. Half the work of laying these mains has been completed, and it is expected that the new service will be in operation in April. If the new pumping station is not available when the reservoirs and mains are completed, the-temporary pumping station at Birch Street will be continued in use.

Five contracts have been let for the laying of mains, and work has been carried out by employees of the City Council and the Works Department. Since the commencement of the work £130,000 has been spent on it, and this year the work has cost £42.000. The new station will be one of the largest fully automatic water pumping stations in New Zealand. Two of the pumps drawing water from the artesian wells will have a capacity of 90,000 gallons an hour, one of 150.000 gallons an hour, and the other two of 60,000 gallons an hour.

FORESHORE EROSION

REQUEST FOR A SUBSIDY

No indication of the Government's attitude regarding the Eastbourne Borough Council's request that it should contribute towards the cost of stopping erosion on the foreshore was available, stated Mr. H. E. Combs, M.P. for Western Suburbs, in a letter read at a meeting of the council this week. Mr. Combs said he had passed on the request to the Minister concerned. "There are other regions in New Zealand similarly threatened, and the extending of assistance to Eastbourne may entail similar help being demanded by other local bodies. I have pressed the probability of a change in the set of harbour currents on to the beach at Muritai, arising from the erection of the submarine boom to Ward Island, and, more remotely, the straightening of the overfall of the Hutt River. If these special grounds for consideration are accepted, the possibility of help to Eastbourne establishing a precedent for similar claims is largely met," he concluded.

"I feel we should not just receive the letter," one councillor said.

It was decided to request Mr. Combs to reach finality as soon as possible.