CITY OF AUCKLAND WATER SUPPLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11685, 21 June 1901, Page 3

CITY OF AUCKLAND WATER SUPPLY.

supply from Nihotupu is not a gravitation supply at all, for tho water is run into the Western Springs and pumped into the reservoirs from there. In that he is again wrong, for the water, I am informed by the waterworks engineer, will not go into the springs at all, but will be conducted into the pipes leading from the springs on the town side of the springs, and come on by gravitation through that pipe, thus saving the cost of an additional pipe for that distance. After condemning the scheme, of which he evidently knows "lift!" or nothing, he then goes on to eulogise hi* friend Mr. Metcalfe's scheme, viz.. the Kohukohu Mountain stream. He tells us that there are 4-,C00.000 gallons there of pure water. Well, supposing there are. If the reports of experts are of any value, there is a great deal moie than that at Xihotupu and the Huia, at from one-half to one-third of the distance that tho Kohukohu is from Auckland. But are there 4.000,000 gallons at the point of interception at the place mentioned': Has Mr. Cooko ever been there': Has anyone ever surveyed the route, so as to know the exact distance tip the mountain that yon have to go so as to reach a point from which it will gravitate the 36 miles, or thereabouts, to Auckland? If they have, 7 should be glad to know. So far as my own knowledge goes. only a rough idea has been formed, and a possible point suggested from an altitude fixed from aneroid readings: but this is often very far from correct, and at that point the stream does not carry 4.000,000 in the driest summer, for before reaching there the stream lias divided into two, and ii bus not yet been determined whether it is possible to connect them by artificial means, so as to get the water of both, and then, if that is possible, no one can state at present what can be obtained from them. But whilst there is „till all this uncertainty about the matter, tho Council has not been asleep, for [ beliove one or two years ago they made application to the Government to reserve this very mountain as soon as they could purchase it from the Maoris, who. I believe, are the owners, with an idea, of using the water from that district in the distant future, when possibly tho waters of the Waitakerei may not meet the requirements of the Auckland of 50 years hence.—l am, etc., Cot'xsei.i.ob No. 2.