COPPER WATER PIPES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21297, 26 September 1932, Page 5

COPPER WATER PIPES

NO DETRIMENTAL EFFECT ASSURANCE OF ENGINEER

Assurance that the use of copper water. pipes in portions of the reticulation system of the Auckland city would have no detrimental effect on the water was given by Mr. A. D. Mead, city waterworks engineer, on Saturday. "the question of copper and its effect on drinking water hsid been thoroughly inevstigated by health authorities, Mr. Mead said. The matter was reviewed in the 1930 annual Teport of the Metropolitan "Water Board, London, by Sir Alexander Houston, director of water examination for the board, who was regarded as the leading authority on all matters connected -with the hygiene of drinking water. Any suggestion that the Auckland City Council was permitting the use of copper pipes without proper investigation or precedent was of course completely without foundation.

The conclusion in the report was that even with an acid water such as might "be drawn from peat or moorland sources sometimes found in England, insufficient -copper was dissolved to cause any injurious action to health. In the case of the Auckland city supply the water as delivered to the consumer was slightly alkaline as a result of the treatment at the filters, and had no solvent action on copper. Moreover, no chloride of lime was used in the city supply, as after filtration it was bacteriologically pure and did not require chlorination.Certain" of the suburban supplies/ however, were chlorinated; It was not the intention of the Auckland City Council to standardise copper pipes throughout the system, said Mr. Mead. Copper pipes had merely been made permissible for use where required, particularly in a few localities where the soil had a marked corrosivo action on ordinary pipes.