THE WATER SUPPLY.

Evening Star, Issue 18255, 20 April 1923, Page 6

THE WATER SUPPLY.

A medical writer of some eminence has said that when a person is in good health his capacity to forget is remarkable. It is probable that this applies to communities as well as to individuals. Thus the present spell of fine weather seems to have obliterated from Dunedin’s memory the long period of gloom and moisture which constituted the summer of 1922-23. It is a duty to jog the public memory as to what effect long continuance of the present dry spoil may have on the city’s water supply. The Southern Reservoir is out of action, and Cr Begg, chairman of the Water Committee, informed his hearers last night that the average consumption per head in Dunedin has jumped to the astounding figure of 75 gallons a day. If that is so, it is high lime meters were installed as a check on the largest consumers, presumably industrial concerns.

But restriction of consumption is, after all, a poor palliative for what may resolve itself into an awkward situation. The proper method is to increase the supplies. Some years ago, after an investigation bordering on tho farcical in some respects, tho City Council Decided on a compromise in the form of increased storage. This has necessitated seriously depleted storage in the meantime, and when the l ! increased storage is available it will bo lesis than was at first promised. From its old figure of twenty-two million gallons the capacity of the Southern Reservoir ig to bo increased to seventy millions instead of a hundred millions. Wo tiro to have lew; storage for possibly greater expenditure than wc were asked to face. Wc never favored tho Southern Reservoir enlargement scheme. It was tho least efficient and relatively dearest of all the alternatives which investigation yielded the council. Right through this water supply business the council has been badly advised. The only exception to its obstinacy in pursuit of an initially poor choice is this compromise over reservoir enlargement.

Now wo have Cr Sincock, his imagination fired by the undertaking out south, anxious to repeat the process up north. He wants the Sullivan Dam to be enlarged next. His contest suggests that again the method is to bo by digging and not by damming. If that is so, those electrio shovels are going to prove expensive toys to Dunedin. But if we are wronging Cr Sincock in this respect, we admit willingly that the Sullivan Dam is an admirable natural site for the storage of many limes the amount of water it can now hold. The corporation has only played with its possibilities. Why? Cr Sincock ought to have at his disposal means to find out the reasons why the dam was not designed and built much higher at tho beginning, and why this has never since been attempted. Expansion of the residential area in Dunedin’s immediate vicinity must bo mostly around the hills. Sullivan’s Dam provides the high-level service. Cr Sincock is right. In view of the council’s queer policy, seemingly immutable, its capacity should be increased—but not by excavating. Reservoirs are of little use without adequoto feeders. For a given draw-off, the smaller the feeder's the larger the reservoir needs to be. In this respect tho policy of tho council has been to put tho cart before the horse. In two out of the three sections of its water system, it leaves pat ox

neglects important feeders, and then declares that more storage is poectcd and that the reservoirs must be enlarged. In our opinion tho council was wrong .in starting to dig above Burnside unless it bad first remedied—not merely patched—tho state of neglect into which the Silverstream Race had been allowed to get, and, had led into it feeders which it diverts from it purposely. Cr Shaddock this week deprecated certain people calling “ stinking fish ” in regard to certain of our trading departments which be declared to be tho envy of other New Zealand municipal concerns. On the authority of a recent visitor from tho North Island who has been exploring tho Silverstream catchment area, it would bo the envy of municipal authorities anywhere in tho North if only they knew of it. Yet onr own councillors have decried it. They call it disappointing and insufficient. They neglect it; they want to jettison it. They really know very little about it. Tho same state of discarded works and neglected opportunities to which wo drew attention years ago still prevails, both on the Silverstream and the-Loith-Waitati systems. We must make at least one exception in regard to councillors who want to go far afield for water. Cr Sincock says tho present catchment area is sufficient. So it is; or, rather, so it would bo if it were used instead of —not used, shall wo say? Bui Cr Wilson, at one with Cr Sincock over enlarging the Sullivan Dam, differs from him on “ tho wider aspect.” Cr Wilson still has tho Leo Stream scheme in mind, although, as Dr Gordon Macdonald says, it would moan getting dirty water from our taps at huge expense. This advocacy of tho Leo Stream scheme appears to be Cr AVilson’s grand and convincing reply to a. not unnatural charge of want of progressiveness in tho council, possibly even in himself. Ho says that if there wore no progress in the council he would not seek a seat there! Is there anything in Mr Munro’s statement that “ tho reason- why Labor was experiencing so much opposition to-day was because those who held office were afraid that their misdoings and their neglect of the people’s interests would bo discovered, and also because they were afraid of finding out that the brains of Labor were as good as their own brains”?