THE GREY LYNN BOROUGH AND COUNCIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11621, 8 April 1901, Page 7

THE GREY LYNN BOROUGH AND COUNCIL.

TO- THE EDITOR.

Sir,— you kindly give me space in your columns' to show the strange state of things in the Grey Lynn Borough and Council? The borough has long been in a very insanitary state, and the Council have in contemplation an unintelligible or useless drainage scheme, and a questionable, if not a tricky, loan of £6000. 1. The borough ic in a most insanitary condition. It is the open dumping ground of much of the filth of Auckland City. In particular, the Surrey Hills gully, ending in Cox's tidal creek, has been notoriously dirty and dangerous to health. The little stream running hero, polluted with sewage, is caught and obstructed in a big artificial dam. In this dam a boy was drowned not very long ago, and dead dogs and cats occasionally rotted. At intervals this dam was discharged into the tidal creek, which in the hottest weather is indescribably filthy. Passing the said dam and creek, young girls sickened, and men had to grasp their noses; and' the disgusting smells at times reached the Ponsonby, Road, and the Richmond Avenue; and I have hoard ailing people attributing thcii illness, and parents attributing the death of their children to the morbific effluvia. . ' ■-'- . 2. The Council now propose a drainage scheme ostensibly for the whole borough, but truly only for the Surrey Hills ; gully. This scheme is to coat £6000, and the drainage is to be.effected by a series of iron pipes carrying off a portion ot the sewage. At a recent meeting of the ratepayers this scheme was declared to be inefficient or unintelligible. It seems to me that the Council are attempting to carry out a three-fold system of sanitation. First, a close-pan system and cartage in connection with the water closets; secondly, an iron pipe system to oarry off the general sewage by bomg flushed, the pipes in heavy rains overflowing and part of their contents passing into the open gully water-course;.and thirdly, the sewage collected in.the big dam would be emptied into llhe tidal creek, i while 100 ft or so further on, the sewage in the iron pipes, and still further on some 200 yds, the sewage of the southern half of the, Ponsonby Ward .-would be discharged into the some, creek. With the rise and the fall of the tide, a vast mass of sewago would bespatter the sides and bottom of the creek and increase its insalubrity. ■ 3. Again, r there ' is something suspicious connected with the apportionment of the proposed loan among the three wards of the '....■•■

borough. Three thousand five hundred pounds are to be allocated to the Surrey and Sussex -.Wards for : the-' gully . drainage, and £2500 to the Richmond Ward, which, ' being mainly ? agricultural, does not need; drainage of the. proposed kind. The Surrey Hills drainage is to be commenced immediately, while the Richmond drainage (really not required) is to be .indefinitely postponed. Why,: then, allocate £2500 to the big Rich- : mond ; Ward? ;/ Why ■:- borrow this unneeded money? ' It is meant to circumvent the Richmond ratepayers. Connected with the outlet of the Surrey Hills drainage, and adjoining the Messrs. Warnock's factory, there are 60 acres, which belong to the Richmond Ward, but the drainage of -which is inseparable from the Surrey Hills drainage. The £2500 allocated to Richmond will, no doubt, be used on these 60 acres in■'! order to complete the Surrey Hill drainage, while the whole of the agricultural Richmond ■ rate- ' payers are artfully burdened with the payment of the interest of £2500. , It is no doubt clever, but rather tricky, to get other people ,to pay an unfair proportion of our rates.—l am, etc., James . Wallis. >,