This Act may be cited as the Paeroa Borough Water-supply Empowering Act 1947.

Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Paeroa Borough Council is hereby empowered to take, divert, and impound from the water flowing into and in the Waitawheta Stream, situated in Blocks II, VI, and VII of the Aroha Survey District, a quantity of water, not exceeding 1 500 000 gallons in any day, in such manner as to the Paeroa Borough Council shall seem expedient for the purpose of supplying the same to inhabitants in the Borough of Paeroa, and, if an agreement is made with any other local authority, to inhabitants in the district of that local authority, and the Paeroa Borough Council is hereby empowered to lay mains and pipes from the said stream to the Borough of Paeroa through part of the County of Ohinemuri in the Hauraki Mining District, along roads, provisional State forests, and other land, and along and across the Waihi–Paeroa railway line, and across the Ohinemuri River, and to convey water through such mains and pipes.

That part of the said Waitawheta Stream above the confluence of the Dubbo Stream with the said Waitawheta Stream, and all tributaries of the said Waitawheta Stream, which join the said Waitawheta Stream above that confluence, shall be deemed removed from the operations of the Mining Act 1926 as from the date of the passing of this Act.

From the date of the passing of this Act no mining rights, licences, or easements over such part of the Waitawheta Stream or any of its said tributaries shall be granted or created, and such part of the Waitawheta Stream and such tributaries shall not, nor shall any of them thereafter, be proclaimed tailraces or watercourses into which tailings, mining debris, or waste water may be discharged.

The Paeroa Borough Council is hereby empowered from time to time, in or adjacent to that part of the Waitawheta Stream mentioned in subsection (1) of the last preceding section, to sink such wells or shafts and make, construct, install, maintain, procure, and alter such reservoirs, dams, weirs, bridges, buildings, machinery, waterworks, cisterns, tanks, filters, purifiers, aqueducts, tunnels, cuts, excavations, races, sluices, pipes, culverts, drains, engines, pumps, and other works and appliances as may be necessary or incidental to the water supply works above mentioned.

Every mining privilege granted after the passing of this Act shall, if it should cross, overlap, or otherwise affect the land on which the mains and pipes referred to in section 2 are laid or proposed to be laid, be made subject to the right of the said Paeroa Borough Council to enter upon the said land to lay and repair the mains and pipes, and shall be made subject to such conditions as shall be necessary for the protection of the mains and pipes, notwithstanding that they may not have been laid.

Nothing in the foregoing provisions of this Act shall authorise the Paeroa Borough Council to lay or maintain pipes or construct or maintain any other waterworks whatsoever across the Ohinemuri River or along or across the Waihi–Paeroa railway line or on or through any land subject to the Forests Act 1921–22 or to enter upon or occupy any railway land or any land subject to the said Act for any of those purposes, except with the consent and previous approval of the Minister of Marine and Minister of Works in respect of the said river, the Minister of Railways in respect of the railway, or the Commissioner of State Forests in respect of land subject to the Forests Act 1921–22.

In giving consent and approval under the last preceding subsection any Minister may impose such conditions as he thinks fit in the public interest, and the Borough Council shall comply therewith.

The powers conferred by the foregoing provisions of this Act shall not be exercised by the Paeroa Borough Council until loan proposals for the construction of the water supply works aforesaid shall have been sanctioned by the Local Government Loans Board pursuant to the provisions of the Local Government Loans Board Act 1926, and the first or some subsequent poll of the ratepayers in the Borough of Paeroa intended to be reticulated or supplied with water from the aforesaid source shall have been taken pursuant to the Local Bodies’ Loans Act 1926 upon and resulted in favour of such loan proposals.

The rights and powers created by this Act shall not be assessable for rating or subject to payment of any licence fees or rentals under the Mining Act 1926.

The powers conferred by this Act on the Paeroa Borough Council are additional to those conferred by the Municipal Corporations Act 1933 and the provisions of that Act shall, so far as the same are applicable, apply to the exercise by the Paeroa Borough Council of the powers hereby conferred as if the powers hereby conferred had been conferred by that Act.