WET WEATHER WATER SUPPLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 243, 4 January 1928, Page 8

WET WEATHER WATER SUPPLY

THE boastfulness of Auckland’s civic administrators regarding the plenitude and quality of the water supply is something at which the citizens may now be well amazed, for after a spell of fine weather the dams are half empty and there is only enough water left for sixty days’ ordinary consumption. Of course, the dams will not be allowed to go absolutely dry. Like sailors who have put off in boats from a wrecked ship, the citizens may be rationed, and this would provide an excellent opportunity for the City Council to demonstrate further its power to curtail, if not to produce. But when assurances that there is an adequate water supply for all contingencies end in half-empty reservoirs, a denial of water for gardens, and the prospect of even more stringent restrictions, citizens are liable to become angry and ask to what kind of administrators they have entrusted the services of the city. Has it not been the experience of the past that prolonged spells of dry weather come in cycles? Why was not provision made for this? The situation to-day is that there is a very serious shortage, and the only conclusion to be drawn is that the whole water scheme was planned in wet weather by optimists, who were blind to the growth of population and lamentably lacking in foresight. There has not been a dry spell during the past decade in which the city has not suffered a shortage of water, and every time this has occurred Iftiere has been a civic plea of unforeseen circumstances, the frenzied purchase of a few pipes, the employment of a few more excavating shovels, and placating promises that the water supply scheme would be so expedited that there would be no possibility of the citizens again being deprived of the free use of their first necessity. And on the first occasion of another dry spell, the same shortage is experienced and the same exasperating restrictions are imposed. What will be the position if next summer be a dry one also, with many more houses and many more people demanding water? In the light of this present experience, the North Shore authorities may be expected to treat with scorn the proposal that they should purchase their water from a city which cannot supply itself.