THE WATER SUPPLY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 121, 21 April 1938, Page 4

THE WATER SUPPLY

IMPORTANCE TO BOROUGH. While the quantity of water used by the borough fluctuates considerably, it is interesting to note that during the heaviest periods of consumption the quantity required every 24 hours is 450.000 gallons, or roughly 100 gallons per head of the population. Industrial concerns operating in Feilding take a considerable toll of the supply. The storage capacity of the two reservoirs at Kiwitea is 1,750.000 gallons, the larger one holding 1,500,000 gallons and the small one only 250,000 gallons. Viewed from the consumption referred to above, it is obvious that any serious interruption in the source of supply must have a corresponding serious effect on the service to the borough, and assuming that the reservoirs were full it would only need the.dislocation of the supply for a week to put the town in an unenviable plight. That the Borough Council realised some years ago that the time must come when the system would need to be enlarged to meet the increasing demand is revealed by the fact that 10 years ago an area of five acres was purchased by the council, about a mile on the town side of the intake, the idea being to provide a site for the building of settling, ba.sins. There is plenty of space available on the site to enable the council to build a basin twice the size of the present reservoirs, and with a total capacity of 4,000,000 gallons. Mr T. K. Hay, the borough engineer, in referring to. the blockage in the mains at the time the discovery was made that willow roots had formed an effective barrier to the passage of water, said that he had been fortunate in clearing the obstruction quickly. The position, however, might not have been so satisfactory had not the discovery been made as early as it was. It is possible that the supply from its usual source might have been cut off for a week. It had also to be remembered that the continuance of the temporary supply from an adjacent stream was dependent upon rain in the back country.

It would therefore appear that the new council will be faced with, the problem of supplementing the town water supply and it is not improbable that the question of building settling basins on the site mentioned will exercise their minds. It is unlikely that the council will be able to finance the project without raising a loan, but in any case the matter is one of paramount importance to the borough and as such will no doubt be given the attention it deserves.