Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, MARCH. 18, 1901. A NEW SEWERAGE SCHEME.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9095, 13 March 1901, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, MARCH. 18, 1901. A NEW SEWERAGE SCHEME.

Mr Mestayer, whose visit to Gisborne we regard with very great satisfaction, believing that it will mark the commencement of considerable municipal improvements that will make our town a 1 much more healthy and pleasant place W live in, having. heen deputed to report on the matter of drainage, can be trusted to produce the very best scheme suitable to the conditions of the borough that the most i up-to-date sanitary science can devise. We have the highest confidence in his abilities, and look forward to an immediate practical result from his investigations. It may not be uninteresting at this juncture to bring under the notice - o f our readers -a new system of drainage, which an endeavor is being made torntroduce to the colonies, and the merits of wnich Mr Mestayer in framing his report will doubtless take into considerar tion. Particulars are given in a repent issugof the Hobart Mercury, which says- : "A new system of drainage,, known as the Liernur system, is coming rapidly info notice in the Old World, and, if it accomplishes all that is said of it, nothing could be better adapted to our needs in Hobart than this system, which deals with excreta and house slops. Hobart needs (1) a system that will remove our drainage without using a lot of water; (2) a ays-, tern which will not pollute our beautiful river ; (3) a system which will conserve all the manure; (4) a system which destroys all disease germs and smells, and reduces typhoid fever; (5) a system which does not require elaborate works and expensive surveys;. (6) a system which is within the reach of the Hobart taxpayers. But this is exactly what the Liernur sys-. tern does, if .we can- believe reports to hand. It needs no water to work it;, but can take the house slops if they are moderate, in amount. Instead of polluting the river, it only adds to it beautifully clear distilled water; : the solid excreta being dried into the most perfect manure which "any agriculturist could wish to use, and within a few minutes of- leaving the closet all disease germs, are? subjected to boiling heat, which at -once destroys their-powefs of conveying diseases.' It requires no expensive surveys, and connections can be made from houses at small expense. The principle of the system is pneumatic. A very powerful airpump at the slaughter yards, air-tight iron pipes to every street and house ending in the closet pans, .and it matters but very little whether these pipes run up or down hill, as, when the pump starts, all excreta is drawn to the works, and should and sewer gas be formed in these' airtight pipes it cannot escape into .the: streets and houses, but is drawn to the works, and there passed through the fire. Trouville, a lovely seaside resort in France, has had it installed for two years,

and the Mayor writes of it: "For the disposal of Uie foecal matter and house slops it lias, during this period, worKed regularly and without interruption to tlie entire satisfaction of the municipality and the public. During the whole of these two years no obstructions have occurred either in the main pipes or in the branch ' pipes ; further, the entire operation^ of | transforming the foecal matter and house ' slops into ary manure (poudrette) takes i place in closed vessels, and no odour is 'perceptible throughout its conversion." Of typnoid fever in this town, E. WadeWilton, A.1.5.E., F.S.A., of Orossgate, Leeds, writes : "At Trouville, for a succession of years there had been epidemics of typhoid fever, and the epidemic was particularly severe up to the opening of the Liernur works, and, directly .they came into operation, or a very few weeks after, there was a steady decline of cases, this decline keeping pace with that of the connection of the house drains to the pneumatic sewer net. During last year there were nineteen cases of typhoid in the town, eleven of which were certainly imported and the rest of very doubtful origin. There was one death, which occurred within seven days of the patient arriving in the town. This year (lbyy) there have been only two cases r and they are both imported, after inception. The manure compares most favorably with the highest qualities of guano, and sells in France readily at &i8 per ton.". The quantity of this manure which would be made in Hobart would be worth about) £5000, per annum, and: would be better than any now imported. In a ■ report, just arrived, the company offers to lay down at its own cost, and without any guarantee from the Town Council, an installation of their system in Manningtree, Essex. As the company is very anxious to introduce it into Australasia, Hobarb could get it on very advantageous terms. Western Australia, India, .and other places are enquiring for it. Mr T. W. Golds, Sanitary Engineer and Surveyor, with a party of English experts, inspected; the i. Trouvjlle works last year, on behalf of the Manningtree Council, and concludes his report as followr- "The Liernur improved pneumatic sewerage system leaves little or nothing to be desired." Mr Theodore Keunert, Civil Engineer, etc., after inspecting the' Amsterdam works, which takes the drainage from about 170,000 people, says : "I afil now bound to declare that the results obtained as to speed of working and the absence of anything offensive are extremely satisfactory, and Amsterdam is little adapted for the application of the system, 'seeing that it is a level flat, intersected with numerous canals. The great mass of foecal matter disappeared before bur eyes within five minutes, with all its gases and smells, without leaving a trace of offensiveuess behind." Dr Thornot, Secretary of the French Government Board of Health, reporting on this system, says : "We say/it once more, systems of sewerage which use- separate sewers of a small diameter, cofiveying .the waste matter from out of the houses, and beyond the limits of the town in hermetically-closed sewers, and transforming them in closed vessels into matter having some mammal value as an agricultural manure, -are the only systems of sanitation of the future." In Trouville, Mr Golds, C.E., reports : "The system was laid down at the expense of the Liernur Syndicate, and is still retained by'thein; the local authorities granting them the right to charge and collect from the owner of each house, -as it is connected up to the. sewer, a certain sum per annum, based on the assessable value, the average amount being 16s pet house."