CLEARING STORMWATER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18679, 8 April 1924, Page 9

CLEARING STORMWATER

measure OF precautions. THE' MAYOR ON FLOODING. '* IMPOSSIBLE TO AVOID." In reply to complaints regarding stormwater in low-lying areas in the city and suburbs, following upon the heavy rainfall, the Mayor, Mr. J. H. Gunson, stated yesterday that much of the trouble was due to the contour of many Auckland streets. Many Jay in depressions, with tributary streets which naturally fed the volume of water in the gully. "As to precautions adopted for dealing with stormwater in the city," said the Mayor, "the main sewer of the Drainage Board takes stormwater as well as drainage, and its capacity is 60,000,000 gallons per 24 hours. But for stormwater, the council relies to a very small degree on this main. Its own emergency stormwater sewers hs.ve a capacity to deal with the overflow results of over an inch of rain per hour, and experience has proved, and it is the wed-considered policy of the council, that anything in excess of this could only be provided for at a very great cost, and is not warranted. In Auckland the damage from stormwater is relatively light, and experience has shown that it affects very tew individuals.

"In some of the districts more recently .amalgamated with the city, such as Epsom, the problem is a much more serious one, because the storage capacity for stormwater is inadequate to deal with abnormal rainfalls, to say nothing of the heavy rainfall such as is provided for in the emergency city service. Here the council has to rely in part at present on getting the surface water away fhfough the volcanic rock caves, etc." Whenever there was trouble, continued the Mayor, the Works Committee did its best to give reasonable relief and to have increased precautionary works constructed. Conditions in this respect were better to-day than they had aver been, but it was impossible to avoid temporary stormwater conditions in many parts of the city. The basis of the few complaints arising in the city was not comparable to the unfortunate conditions which were so widespread over the province in the matter of flooding. Even in some of the more important provincial towns considerable hardship had been experienced and much damage done by abnormal rainfall. In Auckland the rainfall had been just as heavy as in these other places, ana the city was built on a succession of hills ana gullies, tut nothing had happened here comparable to the happenings in the province. With the flooding of perhaps a dozen properties and houses, and very little material damage, Audclanders had very little ground for I complaint.