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102
Water Supply—Storage Cisterns.
Seventy-two Storage cisterns were cleansed and repaired
or provided with suitable covers. The latter provision is one
of some importance, as evidenced by the fact that in the
course of inspection one not infrequently finds the decomposed
bodies of birds or mice in uncovered cisterns, especially those
situated in the space immediately below the roof. Soot and
dust are also constantly falling into uncovered cisterns, and
during the summer months an objectionable green vegetable
growth accumulates on the surface of the water in cisterns
placed in an external position.
Legal power to control the storage of water for domestic
use was expressly given for the first time in the Public Health
Acts Amendment Act, 1907, section 35 (1), which enacts as
follows:—
"Any cistern used for the supply of water for
"domestic purposes so placed, constructed, or kept as
"to render the water therein liable to contamination,
"causing or likely to cause risk to health, shall face
"deemed to be a nuisance within the meaning of the
"said Act." (Public Health Act, 1875.)
Sanitary Conveniences at Licensed Premises.
In my Annual Report for the year 1913 I gave some
detailed particulars of the type of urinals which existed at
the various licensed premises within the district, and of the
systematic steps which had been taken up to the end of the
period then under review, with the object of securing the
reconstruction of many of these conveniences.
The structural work required to be carried out is now
practically complete, and I append a list of the licensed premises
in the district with particulars of the type of each urinal
provided thereat:—