WATER SUPPLY ITEMS.
All bids for constructing water-works at Somerset, Pa., were not opened January 6 by order of the court, but were placed on file pending a decision of the court. Burgess W. H. Welfley writes FIRE AND WATER : “After a reasonable time, say one month, we will not hold bidders to a rigid forfeiture of checks in the event that they cannot see their way to take the contract if it so happen that we may go on ; for we well know that the conditions may change that no bidder could be expected to stand on his bid.”
Superintendent C. W. Calkins writes to FIRE AND WATER: The Rockford (Ill.) city council have just made a contract with Alex. A. Suel of New York for a Pohle air lift pump, to pump four 400 feet artesian wells to deliver 2,500 000 gallons in twenty-four hours, if the wells will furnish that amount, which we feel confident they will, for an additional water supply. The (compressor will be 14 x 22 in steam and air cylinders, double crank and fly-wheel, Myer’s valve gear ; was in mining building at World’s Fair. This plant we shall begin to construct as soon as the frost is out of the ground. The system will be quite novel in its construction and arrangement, and also the mode of the delivery of the water from the wells to the storage reservoir.
Boston’s controversy with the town of Southboro is practically settled. The former is to pay the latter $50,000 for new roads to take the place of those destroyed by the new dam, the contract for which calls for its completion by November 1, 1896.
It is proposed to build a new reservoir at Waltham, Mass.
An application is to be made to the Massachusetts legislature for permission to borrow $100,000 on water bonds for Brockton.
At a special town meeting at North Andover, Mass., last week, the board of commissioners was directed to postpone action relative to establishing a system of water-works until the next annual town meeting.
The water system talked of for Newport, Me., has been voted by the town, and contracts for pipes will be let at once. Work cannot begin until after frost is out of the ground next spring. The water company will issue twenty-year bonds at six per cent, an exceptionally good investment.
Work will be started on a new reservoir, Loveland, Col., soon. Some 2300 feet of tunneling will have to be drilled, besides a considerable distance of deep cutting.
The water main has burst at Woodstock, Vt., and will have to be replaced.
A system of water-works will probably be put in this season at Wesley, la.
The Allegheny (Pa.) council is considering the introduction of a new water supply and has taken action to obtain bids on three different plans: For a temporary pumping plant, a permanent direct pumping plant without filters, or such a plant with filters. Julian Kennedy, M. Inst. M. E., has reported on a complete new supply system with estimates of $710,000 for pumps, $800,000 for a steel conduit and 300,000 for filters, besides smaller sums for other features, making a total of $1,925,000.
Governor Werts of New Jersey in his message to the legislature on Tuesday said : It is of the utmost importance that measures be speedily taken for the systematic control by the State of the sources of water supply within its borders for the common benefit of all its citizens. This is a matter of special and immediate concern to the populous communities in the northeastern section of the State.
The Newport (Me.) water board has awarded the bid for furnishing pipe for the twenty-inch main to R. D. Wood & Co., Philadelphia, who bid $24.10 per ton for 550 tons.
For two years past people living in the aristocratic Glen Ridge end of Bloomfield, N. J., have been in a quandary over their inability to obtain water from the mains of the Orange Water Company, which supplies the town, and the contract for which recently expired. The Glen Ridge citizens do not want the township committee to make a new contract with this company unless there is a clause which will give Bloomfield the right to cut off the Glen Ridge end if they do not give the required pressure at all times. Glen Ridge people are in arms at the disregard the Orange Company has shown for their end of the town, and some threaten to apply to the legislature, asking for annexation to Montclair if the contract is signed again. A committee is already preparing a bill to be submitted to the legislature for the joining of Montclair and Glen Ridge. The water supply in G en Ridge has been far from the standard, and in many cases the people have been obliged to get their supply from the wells of neighbors and pay for it, while at the same time they paid taxes for a water supply which they did not get. Until it is known whether Bloomfield can get a supply from the East Jersey Company or some other corporation the Bloomfield committee has been authorized to make use of the option of the Orange Water Company for six months longer from January 1 to July 1, 1894. The township committee, after investigating a proposed system that will be to the best advantage ot Bloomfield, will call another public meeting and report the result.
De Saussure & Harvey of Charleston, S. C., have written a letter regarding the opera house fire, in which they say : “The city council having recently very greatly increased the license for fire insurance companies, would it not be next in order for them or the board of firemasters to carefully look into the city’s contract with the water-works company, with a view to ascertaining whether said contract contains any provision whereby the much taxed insurance companies and the public generally can enforce that much boasted and paid for protection. Had the companies had that protection at yesterday’s fire when most needed, in its incipiency, they would not now be called on to pay so heavy a loss, nor the public to mourn its place of amusement, for it was noticeable to everyone that, although the department was prompt to respond, there was not pressure on the mains sufficient to reach the roof of the low building in the rear in King street. Will some one not interested in this pampered water-works company explain why the city, when paying for protection, is forced so frequently to go without it ? The old tidal drain method was even better than this, as being at least less expensive.”
The attorneys for Kansas City in the water-works litigation are busily engaged in briefing the testimony in the case, and will not file the reply of the city to the company’s answer to the city’s cross-bill until the testimony taken before the special commissioner has been briefed for presentation to Judges Caldw’ell and Philips at the hearing January 22. The testimony taken by the city and the company respectively has been printed and the volumes were turned over to the parties representing the litigants. The city’s testimony takes 832 pages of printed matter, and the water-works company’s testimony takes 840 pages.
The result of a special election held in Globeville, Col., Saturday on a proposition to bond the town for $40,000 for waterworks was sixty-one against and thirty-three in favor of the proposition. Eleven women voud at this election, Blenda Gertz and Katherine Straight being the first women to cast ballots under the new law.
The leading event of the year in the Canton (O.) waterworks department was the purchase of the new pump which is now being placed in position at the pumping station. It is a Gaskill pump manufactured by the Holly Manufacturing Company of Lockport, N. Y. It has a capacity of 8,000,000 gallons every twenty-four hours. It required several months’ work at the pumping station to get in teadiness for the pump, and six will now be required to put it in working order. The total cost of the machine, connections and everything complete is $36,(xx>.
Etna burough, I’a., has purchased the Etna Water Company’s plant and will take charge of the same on Tuesday. Six new fire plugs are to be put in the town. Councils will soon hold a special meeting to consider plans for the new incandescent electric light plant.
Bonds to the amount of $6500 have been voted in Hemingford, Neb., for the purpose of building and maintaining a system of water-w’orks. 1’hey were carried by a majority of nine votes. This act on the part of the progressive citizens of the town puts lleiningford away ahead of many older and larger places. The town, undoubtedly, will now make rapid development.
The Southampton (L. I.) Water-works Company has awarded a contract for the construction of a system of works in the village to Oscar Darling, a civil engineer of Huntington, same to be completed June 1. The contract price is $50,000.
Ballinger, Tex., will have water-works.
The contract between the Newport (Me.) Water Company and the town has been signed and nothing remains to hinder them from putting in the water-works next spring. The bonds will be gilt-edged, six percent on twenty years. The estimated cost of the plant is $30,600. The gentlemen who organized the company are businessmen, and will push the works to an early finish.
The new Boston water basin at Southboro will be thirty-five times as big as Boston common, but it will never be half so famous as the little two-for-a-cent frog pond.
A striking truth of the value of sand filtration as a means of removing even disease organisms from water has been given by Mrs. Percy Frankland. The adjoining cities of Hamburg and Altona obtain their water from the Elbe, the supply for Hamburg being drawn from above the town, and that for Altona being drawn from below Hamburg after the river has received the sewage ot nearly 800,000 people. The Hamburg water is unfiltered ; the Altona water is passed through sand. When the epidemic came, the cholera deaths in Hamburg were 1250 per 100,000, but only 221 per 100,oco in Altona, while on a street dividing the two cities the Hamburg side was cholera-stricken, and the side belonging to Altona remained free from the disease.
The new Springfield (Mass.) fire commission had a practical test of the water supply to see what it could accomplish at a fire. Forty picked men and two steamers were brought into service and a number of evolutions were carried out. It was proved to the satisfaction of the commissioners that the pressure is not strong enough to cope with a fire in a tall budding without the aid of steamers.
The citizens of Danville, Ky., are taking active steps toward the erection of water-works. The plant is expected to cost about $65,000. The Advocate says ; “ The water-works question has at last assumed a business-like attitude, and the taxpayers of Danville will shortly have an opportunity of giving an expression to their desires in the matter. Mr. Morgan, the Chicago engineer, had a conference with a committee from the city council Friday afternoon, and he was employed to make full and complete plans and specifications to be submitted to constructing companies and contractors. After these plans are completed it will take but a short time to get bids for the building of the works, and the people can then have an accurate idea of the cost.”
The Newark (N. J.) board of works has adopter! plans and specifications for the completion of a storage reservoir to cost $800,000, which will be situated on Ivy Hill, in the township of South Orange. The dimensions of the reservoir are 1215 feet from north to south, and 1082 feet from east to west. The capacity will be 235,000,000 gallons. The work must be completed before August 1, 1896.
The works at Marlborough, N. Y., were opened last week and Superintendent Marsden must feel gratified at the result. The system involves 33,350 feet of pipe, forty-five hydrants and a number of valves. The pipe was from the Utica Pipe Foundry and the hydrants and valves from the Eddy Valve Company of Waterford, N. Y. The cost of the system is $52,000.
The Walla Walla, Wash.,cityjcouncil.have advertised forbids for the sale of $160,000 bonds voted at the city election held in July, for the purpose of constructing a system of waterworks. The Walla Walla Water Company has given notice through the city press that there is a contract existing between the company and city which has many years to run, the terms of which are to debar the city from constructing opposition water works, and the company is prepared to institute legal proceedings to enjoin the city from prosecuting the work.
The transfer of 1363 shares of the stock of the Rockland (Mass.) Water Company, held by James R. Farnsworth and other members of the Farnsworth family, to C. F. Starr as trustee for a syndicate of Boston capitalists, has just been consummated. By the terms of the agreement Mr. Starr has an option on 200 additional shares owned by the Farnsworth interests. The whole number of shares is 2137, The purchasers therefore obtain full control of the works. Negotiations for the deal began about December 1. Mr. Starr is a member of the firm of Dillaway & Starr of Boston, who are members of a syndicate operating water-works in various cities of New England and the West. On several occasions within the past two years attempts have been made to acquire the property for the purpose, it is thought, of consolidating it with tire Camden and Rockland Water Company, a rival concern. The amount paid for the stock by Mr. Starr is understood to be something over $100,000. The syndicate assumes all of the company’s contracts, including that of a Virginia company for iron, and the Boston firm of Dacey & Taylor for the reconstruction of the works, which was begun last fall. It is thought by some that a consolidation with the Camden and Rockland Water Company may follow. The money for the purchase of that stock was raised in Boston. Among the gentlemen said to be interested besides Mr. Starr are: C. F. W. Dillaway, Charles W. Young and Charles S. Rogers of Boston, and Geo. P. Wescott, president of the Portland Water Company, is said to be in the deal. The Rockland Water Company was chartered in 1850. The works were built the next year. Mr. Farnsworth has been president of the company for forty years.
The Boston water board reports the daily average consumption of water in December, 1893, to have been as follows : Sudbury and Cochituate system, 47,807,800 gallons, as against 43.766,400 in December, 1892; Mystic. 11,620.800, as against 10,473,700 for the corresponding month of 1892 ; total, 59,428,600, an increase of 5,188,50(5 gallons over December, 1892. The rainfall for December, 1893, was 4.94 inches at Framingham. 5.03 at Lake Cochituate and 4.35 at Mystic lake; December, 1892, it was 1.14, t.i8 and 1.21 inches respectively. The average rainfall for December at Lake Cochituate for the last twenty-six years was 3.56 inches, showing that last December’s precipitancy was in excess of the average. The flow of the Sudbury and Cochituate supply is now about 10,000,000 gallons a day more than its consumption.
City clerk T. F. Thoner of Wheeling, W.Va., writes: “ We have just completed a water-works. 1 think Benwood, Marshal county, just south of here, is about to build a waterworks,”
At Loveland, Col., the purchase of all the land necessary for the completion of the new reservoir has been finished. Prospect holes will be sunk and the work will be kept up until completed to ascertain the sort of rock which must be tunneled for the outlet to the new reservoir. Some 2300 feet of tunnel will have to be drilled, besides a considerable distance of deep cutting before the outlet will be complete.
The Spring Valley (Ill.) counciljhas made an appropriation of $10,000 lor the perfecting of the water system. The Horsheitner springs will be investigated and the feasibilty of an artesian well will also be considered.
Superintendent B. S. T. Dabrie of Pulaski, Tenn., has ordered a double compound direct acting duplex pump front the Stilweil-Bierce & Smith-Vaile Co. of Dayton, O. The maximum capacity of the pump is 800 gallons.
Bids for the building of the new reservoir in South Orange, N. |., are to be asked for. This was decided upon at a rather long meeting of the board of works, held last week.
A correspondent at Lawrence, Mass., writes: In connection with the partial failure of the driven well system adopted by Lowell in order to secure a supply of pure water, it is interesting to note that the filter gallery in this city has succeeded in meeting all demands upon it up to the present time and is expected to do the same in the future. Many doubts were expressed by the skeptical as to its ability to purify the water during the winter months when the filter would be covered with ice. Superintendent Salisbury stated yesterday that the ice had caused no trouble up to date except the necessity of breaking it up around the edges to protect the bank as the ice rises and falls with the water. This is done every day by two men. There has as yet risen no necessity of removing the top layer of sand since winter set in, nothing having been done in that line since November. The removal of sand will not be necessary unless it shall become so clogged with matter taken from the water that a sufficient amount cannot pass through to supply the city. This scraping process is not so frequent during the winter months because of the fact that the matter which is washed into the river at other times by the rain is, during the winter, washed on top ol the ice and thus held back from flowing down stream and into the filter. The ice is now about eight inches thick on the filter and will probably be allowed to remain untouched unless it should thaw enough to make its removal a compaiatively easy matter.
“ In considering drinking water,” observes a member of the Lowell (Mass.) board of health, “ the only really important question is whether the water is or is not contaminated by sewage or decomposing water. It may be taken as a rule, that very few samples of water are free from this, even after treatment by the best filters under the most favorable conditions, and the question in practice is not whether decomposing matter is present, but whether the quantity is objectionable or dangerous. As a rough preliminary test, a solution of permanganate of potash is sufficient, and enough of this for a hundred tests may be purchased tor a penny from any chemist. Make a solution of the permanganate in water of a strength which in appearance is about the color of port wine, fill a deep, clear glass with the water to be tested, and add sufficient of the solution to color the water a faint pink. Cover it over and let it stand for three or four hours, and if the pink color has disappeared, the water is doubtful.”
