Schemes For Treatment Of Whangarei Wafer

Northern Advocate, 4 June 1947, Page 6

Schemes For Treatment Of Whangarei Wafer

TWO schemes for the treatment of Whangarei water, one costing £52,000 and the other £57.000, were placed before the Whangarei Borough Council last night. On the recommendation of the waterworks committee the council deferred consideration sine die.

The first scheme, costing £52.000 provided for the treatment at Paranui Hill of 1,000,000 gallons of water a day from the Hatea River alone. Filtration plant was estimated to cost £20,000, two reservoirs, each of 1.000,000 gallons capacity,£ 22,000, new pumping equipment £IBOO, and new mains to reservoirs, £3500.

Maunu line. The installation of meters would probably increase the period for which the filtration scheme would provide water.

SUPPLY TO PORTLAND The engineer also reported on a proposal to pipe Hatea River water to Portland. The object of the proposal was to discontinue the Hatea supply to the borough and the piping of it to Portland turn-off where it would be fed into the Portland main. The existing Maunu supply lo Portland would be disconnected and the water now being used by Portland, together with water from Crystal Springs, would be boosted into Whangarei. At present the borough used about 460.000 gallons a water, a day on peak demand and this proposal would make available 100.000 gallons from the disconnected Portland supply and 250,000 gallons from Crystal Springs, a total of 250,000 gallons. As a deficit would still exist and was growing yearly he could not recommend adoption of the scheme which was estimated to cost £52.360 with annual operating charges based on 1.000.000 gallons a day of £2916. or a daily charge of £214.

The second scheme costing £57.000 provided for the treatment at Whau Valley reservoir of 1.300.000 gallons of water a day from Hatea River and Whau Valley Stream combined. Annual operating charges at the Paranui site would be £4283 to which had to be added power charges and cost of chemicals, making the daily charge £33.73 for 1.000.000 gallons or 8.09 d for 1000 gallons.

STORAGE QUESTION For the Whau Valley scheme the annual charge would be £483(1 together with power and chemical charge, making the total operating cost £32.7 a day for 1.000.000 gallons, or 7.85 d for 1000 gallons. In addition a further 300.000 gallons would have to be treated. The net increase of 530.000 gallons a day would be sufficient for a population increase of 3200 persons, oecur-

The council adopted the recommendation of the waterworks committee deferring the question sine die.

ing possibly in eight or nine yea:'.; time, stated the engineer (Mr h A Cromie).

To provide sufficient water for the next 10 years the capital cost under the Whan Valley scheme, the adoption of which he recommended for reasons of trouble-free water, centralism'.; ot plant and saving in power charges, would be £28.998. The balance of the amount of £57,000 or £28,000 was required at present for increased storage under existing conditions as the storage position wa r critical in the event of a break in the

No Fi 119rine Test

Until one of these two schemes were in operation, the waterworks committee was not in a position to consider the impregnation of the town's water supply with fluorine, said the chairman of the committee (Mr J. F. Johnson) today. Fluorine is stated to be a valuable agent in preventing dental decay. Mr Johnson did not know if the supply would be suitable for the experiment.