WATER SUPPLY SCHEME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21579, 25 August 1933, Page 10

WATER SUPPLY SCHEME

The proposal by a private company to draw water from the Waikato lUver to supply local bodies was officially before the City Council last evening. The result was the rejection of a tentative offer in such terms that it is obvious the city will not in any circumstances be a customer for such water. Though different in details, the project is essentially the same as others advanced for resort to the Waikato River for a water supply. The council has always declined previously to be a party to such a scheme, and has merely done so again. The reasons are just the same, and are as tenable now as they always have been. The Waitakere area was deliberately chosen as the source of a water supply, and the decision has been reaffirmed many times since first it was made. For the benefit of its own citizens, and of outside local authorities seeking to buy water in bulk, the city has invested a very substantial sum in developing this source of supply. The total capital expended is in the vicinity of £1,900,000. To abandon this would be a very serious step indeed, and it is impossible to see how the offer of tho company could be accepted without abandonment being the result. This is not the investment of the City Council, though the council, in its corporate capacity, has been the agent for making it. Actually, it is tho investment of the people of Auckland. The council's first duty is to protect and conserve this asset. It has no mandate to discard it, leaving, of course, the liability for capital expenditure still to be met. These being the circumstances, it is difficult to see how tho council could have decided otherwise than it did. In essence, its rejection of the offer made has no bearing on the question of bringing water from the Waikato. It merely means that the city is so deeply committed to another supply scheme—and one which, incidentally, provides satisfactorily for its needs—that it is not a potential customer for water from the Waikato.