CONTINUED DRY SPELL

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 45, 20 January 1928, Page 7

CONTINUED DRY SPELL

AFFECTING DAM AT TIRITEA. MANGAHAO’S POSITION WORSE. FARMERS WANT RAIN. With the continued spell of dry weather, water has now ceased to flow over the lip of the dam at Tiritea, and the question of prohibiting the use of garden hoses k under consideration by the Borough Council. Water ceased to come over the bypass yesterday, and in the afternoon the level in tho dam was three-eighths of an inch from the top. With the heavy draw-off in town, the position is considered fairly serious. The Manawatu River is now at its lowest level for many years, and tho shallowness of the water has been commented bn by many who have passed over the Fitzherbert Street bridge. There the gauge reads • below zero—zero being the lowest summer level that had been experienced up to tho time of the gauge being put in. Mr John Lane, of Hokowhitu, who has known the river for 54 years, cannot recollect having seen it at a lower level than at present. Last Saturday, he stated, it had risen three inches, but since then had steadily fallen.

At Mangaliao the dams are getting lower, and, as predicted by Mr I. R. Robinson, chief electrical engineer at the works, when speaking to the party of local body men which visited Mangahao on Wednesday, the fuel plants that have been called on to assist are now giving trouble. One engine at the Palmerston North borough station it is understood, has had a somewhat serious mishap, and the parts have been sent to Napier for repair. Since the Mayor’s warning last Saturday concerning, the excessive drawoff for watering gardens, tho position in regard to the water pressure locally has been much better, the average pressure between 5 and 8 o’clock in the evening during the week having been seven pounds higher. Out in the countrv the farmer is beginning to be very much affected by the dry spell, and several water tanks are reported to be now empty. There has been a big decrease in the ■'•milk yield, the cows giving noticeably less practically every milking. Pastures are badly in need of rain, and a reporter was informed to-day, unless there is a good fall very shortly, tho grass will go back so far that it won’t recover this season.

The continual dry weather experienced in most parts of the Dominion is causing no little anxiety in many centres, but so far as Hawera and Taranaki generally is concerned there is no shortage of water at the present time, says a Taranaki exchange, owing to a certain extent to the fact that tho rivers are snow-fed and do not suffer to the same extent as other rivers. Should there be, however, an exceptionally dry summer in Taranaki, the probability of a shortage of water would be about the latter end of March and April, but by that time the autumn rains would" be commencing to fall again.