CHATEAU WATER SUPPLY

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 December 1945, Page 5

CHATEAU WATER SUPPLY

EFFECT OF RUAPEHU ASH.

AUCKLAND, December 21.

The water supply of the Chateau Tongariro has been so fouled with ash from Mount Ruapehu that all .mental hospital patients at the Chateau are being evacuated to the Ravensthorpe Convalescent Depot at Bombay. A special train will leave Waiouru early to-morrow morning with about 180 female patients and 30 members of the staff. It is due at Drury shortly before 6 p.m., and the patients-will then be taken to Ravensthorpe by road. Preparations for transferring the Chateau patients to Ravensthorpe have been in hand for some time, and to that extent the move is routine. However, it has been hastened by the serious deterioration of the water. This is drawn from a stream fed by Ruapehu’s snow slopes. Recently it has been polluted by deposits of ash which have been blown off the mountain. The ash has also interfered seriously with the efficiency of the Chateau’s powerhouse and has made conditions increasingly unpleasant and inconvenient. Although the last of the military patients at Ravensthorpe had already been sent to other hospitals, members of the staff were still in. residence when the decision was made to accelerate the transfer of mental hospital patients. .. / •' The Chateau has been in* use' as a mental hospital since October, 1942. It was taken over for the accommodation of female patients after Porirua Mental Hospital had been damaged by an earthquake. Ravensthorpe has been a service convalescent depot for about three years. It consists of a number of well-built and comfortable wooden buildings on a pleasantly wooded site at the foot of the Bombay hills on the Great South Road a few miles beyond Drury.