THE CITY WATER SUPPLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19888, 6 March 1928, Page 8

THE CITY WATER SUPPLY.

Consumers of water will appreciate the irony of the announcement that the enlargement of the Waitakere dam has been completed—at the end of one of the driest summers in the country's history. The proposal to raise the dam, doubling the capacity of the, reservoir and increasing the supply from three to four and a-half million gallons daily, was authorised at the end of 1925 when the City Council was awakened to a realisation of the perilous inadequacy of the existing storage. At an earlier stage, owing to unforeseen delay in constructing the Nihotupu dam, the so-called auxiliary dam had to be hastily built at a cost of £15,000. Then, owing to ill-advised postponement of the Huia scheme, the council was forced to sanction an expenditure of £BO,OOO on the Waitakere dam. But instead of insisting that this emergency provision should be completed without delay, the council has allowed it to be protracted over three summers, and many months beyond the original estimate of the time required. Public protests were necessary to induce the council to recognise the necessity of pressing the Huia scheme forward, and it is now stated that the working of double shifts will be commenced next week. The public will expect the council to devote careful attention to this matter. It has the city engineer's assurance that the pipe-line and conduit from the Huia Valley can be completed by next summer to add the running water of that source to the 10,000,000 gallons that will be available from Nihotupu and Waitakere. That supplementary provision will certainly be necessary if consumers' patience is not again to be taxed by intolerable restrictions. It is equally imperative that the Huia reservoir should be completed by the following summer. Obviously that does not mean that the finishing touches are to be given to the work just as the autumn rains begin, but that the dam will be ready to receive and hold the spring rains as a reserve against the possibility of a dry summer. Unless the City Council is to forfeit public confidence entirely and surrender its claim of ability to supply the whole metropolitan area, those two objectives must be achieved punctually.