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22 Water supply in the region 1867–2006 1940s-1970s Regional water

New Zealand Free Lance, December 3, 1952.

Water supply pipeline, (circa 1952). ( Free Lance Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Reference PAColl-8983-25. Image colourised) Water supply in the 1867–2006 23

The Hutt River scheme the basin. In supplying the Government water The route chosen was to go through the information, the board sensed the offer Valley to Haywards Hill, then The Water Supply Board was well aware of government money and “omit[ed] The Government endorsed the board’s over to (in 900-millimetre pipes). by the mid-1930s of the need for a new references to the economics of construc- proposal and agreed to fund the Hutt After the line branched off for Porirua and source. Wellington had “very seldom for tion”, that it “cannot be justified on River scheme (the cost being £1.1 million Plimmerton, a 750-millimetre pipe was to any length of time been able to sit back economic grounds”.182 The Hutt option excluding service reservoirs and branch head south through more tunnels, past Tawa, and congratulate herself upon an entirely was now, as Scheme X, contrasted with lines), but then “to hand over the works Johnsonville and Wilton to the Karori reser- adequate water supply”.177 Constant a cheaper scheme (Y – enhanced artesian on completion to the Wellington City voir.193 The Ministry was to lay the pipeline expansion, plus the first Labour Govern- and Little Akatarawa waters). Semple Council, to operate on behalf of the [Water to Wellington’s boundary with Johnsonville ment’s intended housing schemes in the visited the Kaitoke site in April with Supply] Board’s members”.187 In reaching at Maldive Street, whereupon Wellington Hutt and Porirua basin, would further City Engineer KE Luke, who detailed the this agreement, the members horse-traded Waterworks (which became a separate increase pressure on existing supplies. river scheme in his 1943 report.183 “Rigid their allocated proportions of water: Wel- branch in the City Engineer’s Department in economies” were already required in lington saying it should not agree to any 1949) supervised the remaining pipe-laying.194 The Hutt River’s headwaters were higher parts of the city during dry weather volume less than 25 million litres per day, investigated in 1906 as a site for a periods, and Luke warned that without otherwise it represented “no gain”.188 hydro-electric dam, but Mangahao, behind recourse to the Hutt gravity scheme, Shannon, was favoured. In 1919 the city A number of factors led Luke to alter the “even with such economies, it is unlikely engineer suggested the Hutt River be pipeline route, which from the 1929 report that rationing in some form or other can developed after the Orongorongo.178 would have gone straight down the Hutt be wholly avoided”.184 Additional intake Valley, to join existing mains at .189 The untapped Akatarawa and Whakatikei weirs had already been added to the The ultimate destination (because of the catchments were also surveyed and Orongorongo valley’s Big and Little Huia Government’s housing scheme) was now portions of the Little Akatarawa watershed streams and Telephone Creek and, when Porirua, far to the northwest. The pipeline acquired in 1928 and 1936.179 Also purchased the O-K main’s carrying capacity dropped now also had to skirt the non-members (in 1939) were 63 hectares at Kaitoke, for 25 percent through encrustation, another of the board in the Valley the Hutt River headworks.180 While the intake was approved for upper George (an attempt to woo them back in 1948 surveying stopped in 1940, the situation Creek on the Wainuiomata side of the had failed).190 Lower Hutt and Petone’s was reviewed two years later by range.185 Enthusiasm for artesian waters withdrawal from the board in 1930 had Waterworks engineer Edgar McKillop, had waned with recent incidents in Foxton “seriously handicapped” its planning for supported by the government’s geological and Lower Hutt of cross-pollution, in any comprehensive water supply scheme surveyor John Henderson.181 which ‘negative pressure’ in leaking wells (particularly choosing trunk routes) ever sucked in polluted ground water from Bob Semple, Minister of Works and past- since.191 Avoiding the Wellington fault line nearby septic tanks.186 master in waterworks projects, drove the was also sensible, but wartime provided effort for a new scheme. In February 1943, another reason not to lay the pipes along the Semple asked for information on potential Hutt foreshore: they could “be disrupted Laying of the Porirua branch line off the Kaitoke- water schemes to supply 15,000 houses in 192 by earthquake or enemy action”. to-Karori water main. (The Dominion Post, Wellington, NZ) 24 Water supply in the Wellington region 1867–2006

Kaitoke water Kaitoke after storms made it too turbid or coloured, and pumped back up the pipe- The heart of the headworks is an intake line from Karori to serve users en route. weir, essentially a low, concrete, gravity A turbidimeter – for measuring dirt dam 40 metres wide and eight metres particles in the water – was installed at high. This raises the normal water level by the headworks in 1958. four metres to allow a flow into the tunnel As built, the scheme’s capacity was 50 conduit. Construction work on the weir million litres per day, but the headworks was hampered by confined working space; were designed for later doubling this the site is subject to flash floods and there figure and duplicating the pipeline.201 is no room for a bypass tunnel.199 Wellington won its 25 million litres per The intake is 200 metres above sea level. day. The rest was apportioned to the other The water passes through a short tunnel board members: Upper Hutt, Makara then crosses the river on a flume bridge County (replaced by Porirua in 1962) and (aqueduct). It then enters settling Hutt County.202 Stewart and Lloyds’ steel pipes from Britain being loaded on a truck at Wellington wharf for chambers to remove sand and silt, and The Kaitoke scheme (as it is now generally delivery to Kaitoke, 1950 passes through automatic rotary strainers called) was completed in 1957 and was to remove twigs and leaves. The flow of operated briefly by the Ministry of Works The Ministry of Works, with Edgar Progress on the scheme was impeded by water is measured, and since 1965 has before being handed over to the Water McKillop now Permanent Head, carried war-related shortages. New Zealand’s war- been chlorinated and fluoridated (this Supply Board on 1 April. It proved very out design and construction work to the time manpower shortage continued into the function taken over by the Te Marua treat- successful as a cheap gravity scheme. general requirements of the Water Supply 1950s. Steel was in short supply. Work until ment plant by 1990). From the strainer Board and subject to the joint approval of January 1950 was therefore limited to road building, the water enters a 2.8-kilometre Water from the scheme arrived in stages to the Ministry’s engineer-in-chief and (acting and tunnel construction. The outbreak of tunnel and emerges in a chamber in the the consumers. First to receive it was for the board) WCC city engineer. Detailed the Korean War again made the delivery of hills above Te Marua.200 From here it is Upper Hutt in 1954, followed by Trentham. engineering studies started in February steel “uncertain”.197 While steel pipes were piped to Karori. From there, receiving supplies for the first time were Pinehaven, , 1944, with the ministry building 14 kilo- eventually imported from Britain, steel plate Construction work included six tunnels Haywards, Plimmerton, Porirua, Tawa metres of access roads to Kaitoke from was also brought in for fabricating into (totalling nearly five kilometres), 54 kilo- and Newlands (in 1959). With the coming June 1945 – and later to parts of the hilly, pipes (more than half of the main pipeline metres of main pipeline, and approx- 198 of Kaitoke water, many of these areas swampy pipe route. An experimental weir was made in New Zealand this way). imately 12 kilometres of branch lines. abandoned their unsatisfactory earlier established earlier on Farm Creek only just In all, 10 reservoirs were built for the 195 supplies.203 Communities further away, survived a flood on 28 October. The land original project and two pumping stations such as Paremata, had to endure “a hot for the headworks at Kaitoke had already erected, at Johnsonville and Karori, for 196 dry Christmas” or two before the Kaitoke been purchased by exchange in 1939. back-pumping to Upper Hutt. Back- pipe reached them.204 Kaitoke first showed pumping allowed water to be shut off at Water supply in the Wellington region 1867–2006 25

its major value when a storm on Boxing Day 1962 shut down the Wainuiomata and Orongorongo supplies. By 1956 the cost of steel plate had trebled, wages had doubled over the 10-year period, and various extensions had been made to the existing project. The original 1943 cost estimate fell far short of the actual costs of £3.4 million.205 When Auckland’s mayor, JH Luxford, heard that the Government was subsidising 43 percent of this he ‘boiled over’, saying it was an “unjustified preferential treatment for Wellington”.206

Petone Borough and Lower Hutt City The water intake at Kaitoke on the Hutt River, remained reliant on their artesian sources. seen here under construction (September Petone discontinued its surface water 1952, left) and complete (above). Building the supply from the Korokoro Stream when intake proved challenging, as it is situated in a its quality proved to be unsatisfactory, re- narrow gorge that is subject to flash floods and the river could not be diverted away from the placing it with new wells and a pumping construction site. station built in Buick Street in 1963.207 Kaitoke supplied enough additional water throughout the region for the next 15 years. Consumer demand increased due to steady population growth, increased water usage for gardening, and with domestic Carmichael reservoir in Newtown (1960), in 1971.210 The new Hutt estuary bridge litres per day. This alleviated the limita- novelties such as automatic washing named in honour of Wellington’s recently- was completed in 1964, with 675-millimetre tions of the Kaitoke scheme when the machines and swimming pools.208 retired water engineer. It serviced Island and 525-millimetre pipes to carry water Hutt River was low or dirty. Described as Augmenting Wellington’s distribution Bay, Lyall Bay and Miramar. Others were from Wainui and the Orongorongos Kaitoke stage two, a booster pumping system, the O-K main was connected to Emerald Hill (Upper Hutt), Hayward respectively over the Hutt River mouth. station and second 18-million-litre the pipe feeding Bell Road via a break- substation (both 1.1 million litres) and After 51 years in service, the old pipe reservoir were constructed at Haywards. pressure tank, in 1953.209 New service Porirua East (4.5 million litres), all con- bridge was demolished the following year. Completed in 1971 at a cost of $600,000, reservoirs were constantly needed. structed in 1966, plus a new 4.5-million- The back-pumping capacity at Karori was it doubled the system’s capacity to 100 Among these was the eight-million-litre litre reservoir for Tawa Borough, completed increased in 1968 from 22.5 to 40 million million litres per day211.