CITY WATER SUPPLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 13, 6 April 1927, Page 11

CITY WATER SUPPLY

RESPONSE TO CRITICISM A WARM DEFENCE COUNSEL’S ADDRESS In outlining the evidence he proposed calling in rebuttal of the criticism levelled against the city water supply, Mr. A. H. Johnstone, counsel for the Auckland City Council, at yesterday afternoon’s sitting of the Royal Water Commission, warmly defended the council’s policy in the past and the proposals now in hand to ensure an adequate supply in future years.

At the outset Mr. Johnstone traced the history of the Auckland water supply from its earliest days, also covering schemes presented by Messrs Anderson and Stewart in 1898 and in 1900 by Mr. R. L. Mestayer. Schemes which, he said, were almost identical with those now advocated by the sponsors of the proposed Auckland Provincial Water Board, and which had been heralded with all the enthusiasm of new schemes. PRESENT SUPPLY Dealing with the present supply Mr. Johnstone said that the works cost £496,740 and provided water for 150,000 people. Of these 90,000 resided in Auckland and consumed 6,838,000 gallons a day. The remaining 60,000 lived in districts controlled by other local bodies and consumed 1,343,000 gallons. Considerable money had been spent on the present source of supply, and when the Huia works were completed there would be a supply of 14,000,000 gallons of filtered water daily, a storage capacity in the hills of 1,550,000,000 and 18,000,000 gallons in the service reservoir. It would then be possible, said Mr. Johnstone, to supply 234,000 people with 60 gallons of filtered water every day. These works were expected to be completed in 1930 when the population would probably not exceed 210,000. It would have to be borne in mind, continued Mr. Johnstone, that the present supply was available within 20 miles of Auckland, a distance that was covered by a pipe line over comparatively easy country. The whole catchment area was approximately 20 acres in extent, and furthermore the ground itself was practically useless for agricultural purposes. Owing to the nature of the ground the water, especially at flood times, was dis*-* coloured. He contended, however, that that did not necessarily mean that the water was impure. Even so, it was decided some time ago to have the water Altered and the plant was now in process of erection, and it was hoped would be completed in July. TAUPO SCHEMA It was a noteworthy fact, continued Mr. Johnstone, that very little complaint about the supply was received in the city, mostly coming from the local bodies in the surrounding districts, of which there were about 26. That there were far too many of these local -bodies in existence was really not a matter that interested the commission, but it interested the City Council to the extent that there was always a possibility of some of them joining up with the city and calling upon the council to be supplied with water. Prompted no doubt by the fact that it was much easier to deal with one body than with 26, the Health Department had written to the various bodies making a suggestion to that effect. A conference was held and straight away it decided that the time had arrived when a Water Board was necessary. A Taupo scheme was drawn up, said Mr. Johnstone, and although they now wanted to jettison it, it still remained and would have to be explained to the commission. It should also be remembered that it was the Taupo scheme that gained them so much notoriety and newspaper publicity. There was absolutely no doubt at all that that was the bait that was used to attract the local bodies into the scheme, and yet, the engineers, Messrs Gray and Rogers, had not considered it necessary to go out and examine the scheme. Numeroiis complaints had also been made concerning the quality of the water, but the only remedy suggested was to go- to the Waikato River. COUNCIL’S POSITION Stating that the City Council’s case had not been presented to the local bodies, Mr. Johnstone said that if the proposal was carried into effect the Auckland City Council, which consumed five times as much water as the local bodies would be placed at the mercy of the board and run the risk of being saddled with a costly water scheme involving a long distance pipe line through difficult country. In effect a one-fifth minority would rule the majority. In conclusion he submitted that the scheme was ill-considered and out of the question. Mr. Gray, the father of the scheme, had been drawn into admitting that it was not yet necessary, while admissions had also been made that the engineers responsible for the scheme had not considered it necessary to look at the supply sources. It was also admitted that no provision had been made for bridge piling, and the tunnel estimates were obviously inadequate for the magnitude of the task. “If the commission took the view that the council’s programme was a sound one and that the financial basis was correct, then it would undoubtedly be an extremely dangerous thing to .hand over control of the scheme to a body that was manifestly hostile to it,” were Mr. Johnstone’s concluding remarks.