LAKE TAKAPUNA WATER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19696, 23 July 1927, Page 10

LAKE TAKAPUNA WATER.

Water supply questions have interested a large area in the neighbourhood of Auckland lately, but, as was shown at yesterday's meeting of the North Shore Boroughs Water Board a special problem affects the municipal authorities on the northern side of the harbour. Four boroughs at present draw'their supply from Lake Takapuna. It lies wholly within the area controlled by one of them. The Takapuna Borough Council is the authority to which property-owners on the shores of the lake look when their interests are touched by the need for guarding the purity of the water. The Health Department is naturally against permitting building near the edge of the lake. The Water Board must feel equally concerned. Yet it is the Takapuna Council which has to consider appli" cations for permission to subdivide. The case referred by it to the Water Board yesterday brings the question to a head. Policy must be determined by the four boroughs associated in the Water Board. It is their problem, and beyond the Health Department nobody else is entitled to intervene. Yet, on the known facts, to any outside observer, two features appear to stand out. These boroughs will have to consider seriously whether they will continue drawing their water supply from the lake. If they wish to discontinue doing it, the search for an alternative will not be easy, as anyone with a knowledge of local topography must admit. If Lake Takapuna is to source of supply, there is the suggestion by the Water Commission, apparently endorsed by the Health Department, that a generous strip of land bordering its banks should be kept free of buildings. The rights of propertyowners are immediately touched. The reconciliation of them with the need for keeping the water pure is a second problem and not less ,diffi- j cult than that of seeking some other source. The upshot of the situation, with its two possible ways of approach, is that the local authorities of the North Shore must face weighty decisions touching their water supply before long.