LATEST WATER NEWS
The East McKeesport, Pa., Water company is extending its mains.
Carrollton Water company, Miss., has been incorporated: capital, $27,000.
Woodhull, Ill., has carried an election in favor of building a water system by a large majority.
On Jan. 23 De Soto, Mo., will vote upon the question of authorizing a private company to build and operate a system of witerworks in that city. The citizens of that place lost out badly by not voting for a plant to be owned and operated by the municipality. The present plan will cost them a great deal more.
Water Commissioner Dougherty, finding that he needs a deputy for the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, New York, will request the authority of the board of aldermen to appoint one, as Corporation Counsel Rives has given an opinion to the effect that the office ceased to exist on January 1.
The present water situation in the borough of Queens. New York, is being considered by this city’s commissioner of water supply. A contract for the Far Rockaway section expired last summer and water has been supplied for fire purposes under temporary arrangements. The other contracts expire next summer.
W. M. Pitt, secretary and treasurer of the Pensacola, Fla., Water company, writes as follows to FIRE AND WATER. “Please publish the following in your ‘waterworks’ items: The Pensacola Water company, wants bids on a standpipe and storage tank. For further information address, W. M. Pitt, secretary and treasurer, Pensacola, Fla.”
A special commission at Chicago reports the feasibility of turning the Upper Merannec river water into the St. Louis reservoirs at a point ninety-six miles from the city. The intake at the Chain of Rocks, whence St. Louis obtains its entire supply, would then be abandoned. The plan proposed would cost from $15,000,000 to $20,000,000, and the undertaking would be rivaled only by the Croton system in New York.
Mayor Ralston Vollmer of Genesee, Idaho, writes as follows to FIRE AND WATER: “We respectfully call your attention to the information set forth on the back of this sheet [showing what a go-ahead and flourishing city Genesee is]. Should you know of any firm, persons, or corporation looking for investment in the line of establishing a waterworks or an electric light system, or both, we should be pleased to have correspondence for same.”
At Haverhill, Mass., a test well is to be driven for the proposed waterworks. Supt. Duff has decided on the Long hill site, where abundant pressure is assured, as the spot is higher than the spire on the First church, and. with a sixty-foot standpipe above the well, there will be a drop into the square of about 200 feet. After the well is driven a sample of the water found will be sent to the State board of health for anajysis, and if this proves the water to be pure, the matter will be laid before the citizens of the town in a special town meeting called for that purpose.
Springfield. Ohio, will nay Daniel A. Watkins_ $4,000 for his land along the Blue creek, amounting to three acres. The new conduit will be laid on it hetu’een the pumping station to the springs whence the additional water supply is to be taken. An extension of main in Wayne avenue will add 550 feet to the city mains and one fireplug to the system. Of the pipe laid 325 feet will be six-inch; the rest, three-inch.
The great dam of the Merced. Cal., Mining comnany is now finished, and the water has been let into it. It was built to impound the water of the Merced river and generate electricity for running mines on the Mariposa grant, as well as to light the streets of Mariposa and Mount Bullion. The dam is 452 feet long, of 302 feet between abutments, contains 700.000 feet of lumber, and cost $35,000. Though only fifty-three feet high and thirty-two feet above water level, it impounds water for two and one-eighth miles below the grade of the can-
Thirty-four years ago cisterns for fire protection were built at many different points of street intersection in order to supply the steamers. When anv one of these was emptied it required the united efforts of the department for about two days to refill it from the river, as each held something ’Hke 1.000 barrels. Since the city waterworks system was installed they have been abandoned and nearly forgotten. One of. them, however, the other day thrust itself obtrusively into notice-when a heavily laden furniture van broke through the pavement and sunk down to the hubs into a pit. The old cistern was twenty-two feet in diameter by thirty-four feet deep. Omaha. Neb., is now abreast of the. times.