LAKE PUPUKE WATER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21165, 23 April 1932, Page 12

LAKE PUPUKE WATER.

DECREASE OF SUPPLY. CONCERN FOR THE FUTURE. " Present indications are that the North Shore boroughs will have to go to an outside for their water supplies within ten years," said the Mayor of Takapuna, Mr. J. Guiniven, in commenting last evening on the steady fall in the level of Lake Pupuke, which is causing concern to the North Shore Water Board.

Tho lake had been falling for some years at tho rate of about a foot a year, Mr. Guiniven said. However, there was no immediate cause for alarm, owing to the facb that Takapuna, Northcote and Birkenhead were not yet fully sewered, but as time went on and tho sewerage systems of the boroughs were completed a great deal more water would be used. It seemed for that reason that some provision would have to be made for a water supply to augment that drawn from tho lake.

Giving an indication of the demand being made upon Lake Pupuke, Mr. Guiniven pointed out that in 1927 the quantity of water consumed by the four marine boroughs was equal to 2£ times tho annual yield on the catchment area. One of tho best things that could happen would bo for tho North Shore Water Board to acquire tho whole of tha land within the watershed. The cost would bo heavy, approximately £200,000, and there was no hope of that being done. A recent by-law excluded buildings only within four chains of tho margin of the lake. Outside that area, building could bo carried out if houses were connected to a Ting sewer. A further drop of tho lake level would be inevitable owing to storm water being carried from the natural catchment area to the sea.

The only way to avoid having to go for water to some source outside tin* marine boroughs would bo by taking supplies from the Upper Wairau Stream as an auxiliary to Lake Pupuke. This would require an extensive dam and the acquiring of a large catchment area. In the event of the building of a harbour bridge, it would bo easy to buy water from the Auckland City Council, the supply being carried by pipelino over the bridge. If the bridge were not built the' only way to bring water from the Waitakere Ranges would be by a route round the head of the harbour, a very costly undertaking..