WATER WORKS ITEMS FROM ALL PARTS.

(FROM SPECIAL REPORTS TO FIRE AND WATER.)

Keokuk, Ia., may levy a one-mile tax for a water system.

No waterworks franchise will be granted at Algoma, Wis. The “antis” won in the Circuit court.

P. H. Porter, of Clinton, Ky., is said to have contracted to build the waterworks at Terry, Ky., for $9,904.

Rumor has it that the water and lighting plant of Worthington, Ind., has been purchased by an Indiana politan.

Ozark, Ala., will soon own its waterworks, and will not be in debt for them, as it has plenty of money in its treasury.

By an overwhelming majority Jamestown, N. Y.. has voted not to spend $700,000 in the purchase of the local waterworks plant.

The question at Miatnisburg, Ohio, is, Shall the new system be municipal or private? Municipal ownership seems most favored.

The city council of Liberty, Mo., has engaged W. Keirsted, of Kansas City, to superintend the construction of the waterworks system for that citv

Scarcity of water caused the government troops to leave Agua Duke, where, though its name implies plenty of sweet water, there are only two wells.

Bloomington, 111., has come to the wise conclusion that a water supply should take precedence of an electric light plant. It may cost the city from $40,000 to $50,000.

At Milton, Mass,, where there is an agitation for taking over the plant of the local water company, there is opposition on account of the alleged unwholesimieness of the water supplied.

A fire protection test well sunk at Pocahontas, la, struck eighty feet of water-bearing sand and rock at 250 feet. The well to he drilled must be of ten inch diameter and nowhere less than seven-inch.

The Austin, Tex., Evening Tribune savs: “Watei meters to control the waste will save fuel and re duce expenses. The city should and must furnish them, starting with the big known wasters of wa ter.”

A measure is to be introduced into the Ohio senate to make water trustees elective, So as to maintain the independence of the waterworks control,

The 5,000,000-gallon Holly pump for Sacramento. Cal., will be vertical, triple-expansion, with a guaranteed duty of not less than 135.000.000 foot-pounds, and a plunger stroke of not less than thirty-six inches.

The waterworks company of Urbana, Ohio, offers to sell its plant to the city at a price to be set by three appraisers, one to be chosen by the company, a second by the city; and the third by the other two.

A movement is on foot at Salem, III., for the building of a large reservoir just north of town, and to the fund the Illinois Southern Railway company has subscribed $1,000. The reservoir will cover forty-five acres and the cost is estimated at $5,000.

Rumor has it that Commissioner Dougherty, of New York city, is trying to bring about the purchase of the plants of the Staten Island (Richmond borough) ami the Crystal Springs Water companies by the city.

Southington, Conn., has brought suit against the local water company to compel it to show cause why the rights, franchises, and plant of the company should not be vested in, and become the property of the town.

The new water plant at Atlantic City, N. J., involves the drilling of artesian wells and pumping the water from them. About five miles of pipe will be laid. The plant, the contract for which is about $40,000. will be in South Atlantic.

The Holly Manufacturing company will lease Sandusky. Ohio, a $35,000 up-to-date 10.000,000-gal -Ion pumping engine at the rate of $2,000 every six months for seven years, at the expiration of which time it becomes the property of the city.

Every Brooklynite who has given even the most casual attention to the problem of local water sup ply will heartily approve Mayor Low’s arguments in favor of the repeal of the Burr act, which pre vents the city from drawing water out of Suffolk county.

The water supplied to Kalamazoo, Mich., is so hard that it injures boilers, of which there are at least 2.000 in the city. Soft water may be piped from Gull lake. More water is needed for fire protection anyway, and it will take $50,000 to pay for the improvement.

The water board of Louisville. Ky., asks for more hydrants and better water facilities and has anpointed a committee to interview the board of public works and board of public safety with that end in view. Larger mains are demanded, especially in South Louisville.

At Sullivan, lnd., the water in the new sixty-foot well is pure and so abundant that many thousand gallons run off daily into the creek. The supply is found in a nine-foot bed of gravel, which will be still farther drilled into. Two more wells will be needed for the town.

General Augustus P. Martin, former mayor and police commissioner of Boston, and up to March 1 water commissioner of Dorchester, Mass., died at his home in the last named city on last Thursday week. The deceased general had served with dis tinction in the Civil war.

The standpipe which the J. J. Case company is putting up at Racine, Wis., for fire protection purposes will have a capacity of 600,000 gallons. The company’s works are well protected. Besides the standpipe there are three pumps connected with the river, and a gate connecting with the mains of the local waterworks.

The new pumping station at Kansas City, Mo., will he built at the foot of Grand avenue or Delaware street. Besides furnishing an increased water pressure for fire service in the business district, by its means fires will be fought in the district without interefering with the water service in any other part of the city.

At Cheyenne, Wyo., fourteen water meters have been reconstructed bv the office of irrigation inves ligations. The new clock work attachment, the in vent ion of Frank Bond and Clarence Johnson of that city, is being used in them. These meters will he employed to measure the water of eastern streams this summer.

The legislature has passed an act legalising the proposed loan of $50,000 to the Des Moines Waterworks company, which will enable it to comply with tlie most onerous of the conditions imposed by the government—that of laying a water main for the army post.

Vancouver, B. C., is improving its waterworks at a cost of $30,000. A five-mile pipe line is to tiring the water from Sohn’s springs to the reservoir, whose capacity is being largely increased, and a new pumping plant is to be installed. The rates will be more than doubled; but more than double value will be given the consumers.

The board of trustees of the waterworks at Sioux City, la., will not resist further the control of the waterworks by the city council, and satisfactory arrangements will be made to allow them to wind up the affairs of the department and turn it over to the proper authorities in the near future. It is possible that the trustees will be allowed to have charge until the end of the fiscal year, March 31.

Work on the filter plant at Tuscaloosa, Ala., has been begun, and will be finished in about four months. Two tanks will be used. The larger one will hold 300,000 gallons and will be placed at the top of the hill near the pump house. The smaller one will hold 230,000 gallons, and will be at the foot of the hill. The filter will be placed between the two tanks. The cost of the work is estimated at $15,000.

At lav ton, Davis county, Utah, the stockholders of the Holmes Creek Irrigation company are at loggerheads with the citizens as to its right to fill a reservoir, as it has done for many years, that came into its possession a year ago. The water so used is that of Snow creek. A committee of the company reports that it has a lawful right to as much of the creek water as had been appropriated in other years. A suit at law will follow.

The Pittsburgh Filter Manufacturing company will build a plant for the softening and filtering of the water at Ensley, Ala., for the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad company. The plant will be the only one of its kind in the South, and one of the few, as it will be the largest of the single plants in the United States. It will cost $35,000, and its daily capacity will be 2,500,000 gallons. It will have four precipitating tanks of 600,000-galkm capacity each.

Assistant United States Engineer L. M. Mann Menasha, Wis., states that the now closing winter has been one of the most satisfactory winter seasons as to the amount of water available for manufactur ing purposes in several years. He says that whil the manufacturers are nermitted to draw water tc a point eighteen inches below the crest of the Me nasha dam in the winter season, there has been no time this year when such has been done.

At Frankfort. Ind., the report of the civil engineers who have been testing the water supply of the city have filed a report favorable to the water company. Thev tested several streams to indicate the fire pressure. At the pumping station the pressure in one test varied from 105 to 120 pounds, and at the fire station it was from ninety-five to 105 pounds. The report indicates that the company is complying with the terms of its franchise, as it relates to water pressure.

A Grand Forks, N. Dak., paper says: The or dinance which has been introduced in the city coun oil, and has passed its first reading, is one of the most important introduced for many a day, and it is to be hoped that it will not be allowed to die but will be pressed until we have a system of meas uring the water used by consumers and charg ing for it that will be more businesslike than the plan under which we have operated since the waterworks system was installed. The present system of charging a fiat rate per month for service of a certain kind, irrespective of the quantity of watei used, is wasteful and extravagant.”

The Merchants’ association of New York city has published in its Bulletin five specific ways in which frauds have been perpetrated on the city in places where some of the 37,000 meters in service in the city are installed. They are as follows: “By suppressing metered premises from the meter class and falsely entering them in the rate class; by me chanically falsifying meters, so that they will regis ter less than the true quantity of water consumed; by false reports by inspectors of the actual quantities registered by meters; by false entries of quantities upon the books of the water register; by secret ser vice pipes, or by-passes, which divert a large por tion of the water actually used, so that it does not pass through the meters.”

Dr. Karl Lie(z, a German chemist, claims to have discovered and has patented a method by which water can be endowed with qualities similar to those of petroleum. He has manufactured a fluid which gives water the combustible qualities of oil, and renders it capable of producing intense heat and a pure white light twice as strong as petroleum flame. The ingredients of the fluid are nonexplosive, and can be produced either in solid or liquid form, according as the mixture is intended to be used for heating or lighting. Exhaustive tests just completed at Hamburg have induced an English syndicate to buy the invention for the purpose of exploiting it on a large scale. The promotors assert that the process foreshadows an industrial revolution, second only to the discovery of electricity.

During 1900 the ptimpage of Toronto, Ont., amounted to 22,094,204 gallons, a per capita allowance of 105 gallons. It has been increased since that time A test recently made by the city engineer in one section of the city, and that not the worse, showed the average consumption of water to be, including waste, only twenty-eight gallons per day per capita • yet the test demonstrated that forty per cent, of that amount was wasted. The area tested was large, while the population, altogether residential, was small. In it were discovered fifty-eight leaks and many taps and other services out of order. A thor ough inspection checked the waste, and reduced the daily per capita consumption to seventeen gallons It is asserted that only one-half of the amount pumped is legitimately consumed.

A correspondent, in writing on the possible passage of the London Water company’s bill, in spite of the opposition of the county council, and a not improbable opposition of many members of the House of Lords, points out that the water supplied to Londoners is not furnished “because it is a necessary of life, but because it is a source of profit to its owners. The fluid sold by the owners of the water is, therefore, both dear and bad. To water a geranium or to take a morning tub at certain times of the year are acts regarded by the water companies as equivalent to the unpardonable sin. The consumers of water now number 6,000,000. In 1931 the number will have increased to 11,000,000. The population will then require an average daily sup ply of 420.000,000 gallons. Today the eight companies who sell us our water do not even supply enough for bare necessities. They sometimes vary their normal practice of retailing hard, or polluted water at a high price; first, by stinting the supply, and. second, by dealing out liquid cholera and enteric or scarlet fever. Parliament has not only placed in the hands of monopolists the pow’er of selling water, but has actually given them powers of tyrannical and vexatious annoyance, which in former days would have been resented by a sterner method than that of protest. Householders are subjected to domiciliary visitations and to arbitrary requirements in respect to water fittings and taps. If a householder does not comply with th£ water companies’ demands he is liable to have his water cut off. The disease is thus set up from which his neighbors suffer. It would be less unreasonable to withdraw the police from a whole street, in consequence of one person’s neglect to pay the police rate, than to cut off the water supply, in consequence of the neglect of one householder to obey the arbitrary requirements of a private trader. The profits of London water companies amounted last year to £1.054,067 18s. iod. ($5.2-20,339/0).”