WATER SHORTAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20537, 12 February 1935, Page 7

WATER SHORTAGE.

Oxford Farmers Have Anxious Time. Shortage of water in the View Hill water-race system which obtains its supply from the River Eyre, has given an anxious time to the farmers in that district. To relieve the position the Oxford County Council is installing a pumping plant capable of raising 4000 gallons an hour. If the water is available at the lower side of the Eyre dam there should be an adequate supply. A petrol engine will be used. The enterprise may be regarded also as an experiment, both as a stand-by and to ascertain to what extent such a plant may be used to operate from the Waimakariri. Where the race system does not operate farmers have had difficulty in securing water for their stock and for their households. The light rains, when only two or three points were recorded, have given little relief and the creeks running from the hills are dry in their lower courses. It is, therefore, a usual thing to see cows driven along the roads to watering places, or water for household purposes being conveyed in carts or sledges. Some creeks, which now are dry, have never before been known to fail.