BOROUGH LOANS AND WATER PRESSURE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 45, 21 January 1928, Page 2

BOROUGH LOANS AND WATER PRESSURE.

(To the Editor)

Sir, —According to tiie borough engineer's estimate there are some oO,UUU cubic yards or silt in tiie reservoir dam at Tiritea. Is it conceivable that this dam—tne only source of water supply for tiie town of Palmerston North containing a population approaching 2U,0U0 —has ueen so constructed tliat it is an utter impossibility to oieamit out unless the whole of our water supply is cut on ? Will someone of your many readers who would be competent to judge answer tins question. If it is answered in the affirmative, then it is up to our boiougli engineer, Mr Hughes, to form Ins estimate of the cost ol a temporary dam and pipe line, and let this proposal come before tiie ratepayers at an early date, when consent to go on with this very necessary work of cleaning out no jloubt would be forthcoming and unanimous. As a ratepayer I maintain that no-other loan proposal for the present ought to get a hearing. Methinks if ever there was an opportune time for ratepayers to put their thinking caps on it is the present. Or are we going on borrowing until a commissioner is installed in place of a Mayor? I will admit the pressure in our half-inch taps is not all that can be desired. What of that? It is much better than it was a fortnight ago notwithstanding the goodly number of mechanical hoses in use daily and scores of them going all night long. Our Jin. taps have been doing service for about 20 years and with the amount of vegetable matter in the Tiritea water imagine their condition, and the result of installing new ones. As a resident of Terrace End I cannot be persuaded that new pipes in Ferguson Street will improve the pressure in our district. There is too big a draw off on the Southern side of the borough to improve conditions here. This is my candid opinion.—l am, etc., A RATEPAYER.