The Evening Star MONDAY, APRIL 1, 1935. GREEN ISLAND’S ENTERPRISE.

Evening Star, Issue 21993, 1 April 1935, Page 8

The Evening Star MONDAY, APRIL 1, 1935. GREEN ISLAND’S ENTERPRISE.

On Saturday last the Mayoress of Green Island turned the first sod to inaugurate work on the Green Island drainage scheme. Actual work by the gangs is to begin on Wednesday next, and it is hoped to complete the job inside three years. Thus one may to-day with confidence speak of the beginning of the end of a state of affairs which evoked strong criticism nearly forty years ago and has been gradually getting worse throughout that period. For reasons which will be stated later, the present scheme is not the one we should have preferred; but It promises early rectification of a distinct menace, which the alternative and more comprehensive one did not, because it involved amalgamation or divided responsibility between local authorities. The* present scheme is purely Green Island Borough’s. That municipality is to be congratulated on its initiative and self-reliance. It is nO small matter for a borough with a residential population of only 2,500 to authorise a loan of £32,000 for drainage alone, but no doubt its revenue from rating is not to be judged merely on a population basis, since it is where the bulk of Dunedin’s major secondary industries are located, and doubtless they are big contributors to the borough rates. Perhaps it is because of the exceptional nature of the security that Green Island has obtained its loan money at the exceptionally low interest rate of 3i per cent. Another favourable financial aspect is that the Unemployment Board has made a grant of £B,OOO to subsidise the wages of the gangs employed on construction. The labourers are to receive 13s 4d per day—presumably working five days a week, since a forty-hour week is proposed. This we regard as among the wisest decisions the board lias made since its inception. It makes possible, or at least accelerates the undertaking of an urgently necessary work—whether

from the industrial or health aspect—of a permanent kind. Since employment begets employment, the indirect, as well as the direct, benefits are sure.to be considerable. Among the indirect benefits, one may calculate on an appreciable rise in the value of property in the borough. And (since the tide of the trade depression seems now to have definitely turned, as is suggested by the Customs returns for the financial year just ended) an accretion to the big industrial undertakings of the borough should ensue, particularly with the removal of the one great handicap hitherto existing. It is true that the upper part of the Kaikorai Valley will not benefit by this scheme, since those factories situated above the old railway tunnel will continue to take water from the Kaikorai Stream and return it dirtier than they took it. But for the more congested lower part of the valley —i.e., Green Island, full provision is to be made, both as regards industrial and residential requirements. As to the question of an ample water supply, which is a necessary concomitant of any sewerage scheme, the completion of the Green Island drainage scheme should synchronise with the completion of the Dunedin City Corporation’s Deep Creek water supply scheme—that is if timetable programmes are adhered to. As the latter scheme is capable of great expansion, there need be no anxiety should the new conditions induce rapid growth of Green Island’s industries, with a corresponding increase in the resident population.

The contributing factors towards active steps replacing endless discussion may be stated as follows: —An era of cheap money, the discrimination of the Unemployment Board in making the money aspect yet easier, the desire of the local authority to relieve unemployment by providing eminently useful work instead of “ mock ” work or sustenance, the earnestness and perseverance of Mr W. T. Smcllic as mayor, and the acumen of the Health Department in seizing on. the psychological moment to promote a start on the removal of a nuisance to which for years past it had taken strong exception, with a minifnum of tangible result. Perhaps the last straw has been a dry, hot summer intensifying the normal aroma of the district to a degree almost audible. Furthermore, the borough engineer, Mr F. J. Williams, has designed a scheme at the very moderate estimated cost' of £40,000 —the main carrier to cost £30,000 and reticulation £IO,OOO. The main carrier, for factory waste and household sewage, begins (at 9in diameter) in the Freezing Company's yards and terminates (at 21in diameter) at a penstock in the sandhills fronting the ocean beach, whence it will be delivered into the sea by a (rising f) main of 15in diameter discharging Ift below low water. (Incidentally, the Board of Health and its advisory local committee of three appear to have waived their prohibitively stringent requirements as to the outfall —50ft below low water or at Black Head, to avoid beach pollution.) The scheme is thus a gravitation one, and on the “separate” system, for stormwater will be conveyed to the Kaikorai Stream by the existing drains. The alternative scheme, which would have provided for the drainage of the entire Kaikorai Valley, would have been comprehensive but expensive by comparison. According to Commissioner Short (in 1908) it would have involved Green Island and part of Taieri County coming into the Dunedin Drainage Board’s area, with the last named as the controlling authority, and with perhaps Green Island ultimately becoming part of Greater Dunedin. But Green Island, perhaps wisely, prefers separate identity, and is not shrinking from accepting tile resultant respbnsibility. Briefly, the result will be a small gap in the ideal scheme, as outlined Inst August by Sir Lindo Ferguson and Messrs F. W. M'Lean and M. H. Watt. As before stated, factories in the Upper Kaikorai Valley pollute the stream, and will continue to do-so, thus contributing to the nuisance lowen down in Green Island. Household drainage in the Upper Kaikorai Valley goes through the old tunnel into the Dunedin system, as does (by pumping) part of the discharge from three large Burnside industrial concerns near the tunnel mouth. Though last September we inclined to the major scheme, the necessary localbody co-operation did not materialise. Therefore we welcome Green Island’s prompt decision and independent enterprise—particul a rly if (as its Committee of Three recommended) the Health Department succeeds in inducing the Dunedin City Council, the Dunedin Drainage Board, and the factory proprietors concerned to “ prevent the pollution of the Kaikorai Stream in its upper valley.”