ROTORUA DRAINAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13729, 21 April 1908, Page 5

ROTORUA DRAINAGE.

*» ■ A VISITOR'S SUGGESTION. [BY TELKOKAMI. OWN" CORRESPONDENT.] Wellington-, Monday. Mil. E. L. Latett Green, a Yorkshire gentleman who has been touring the Dominion, stated in the course of an interview that when visiting "Kotorua a few weeks ago lie had been struck with the number of cases of sore throats and dysentery, and had received an impression that the same might have been caused by the drainage of the place. He had noticed here and there that the pipe drains obtruded, and though he had no specific grounds for believing there was any danger in such a method of drain laying, he Held the opinion that when drains were laid so near the surface they should be open. In England all owners of private land had to drain their properties, and the usual method adopted was the open drain, made either of tiles or hard wood. He suggested that such drain'., flushed by the ■ superfluous medicated waters of Whakarewarewa, would be much more preferable from a sanitary point of view than closed-in drains on the surface of the ground. In the. one case it could be seen exactly how things were, and in the other it could .not. He thought that the obnoxious germs would be killed by the chemically-laden waters from Whakarewarewa, which should have a sufficient fall to flush the drains of Rotorua. These waters should, he thought, act on matter like a septic tank, while the residue, chemically treated by this natural means could be collected in a bed and used for manuring the country around.