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Show Published Every Saturday BY GOODWINS WEEKLY PUBLISHING CO., INC. F. P. GALLAGHER, Editor and Mgr.L. J. BRATAGER, Business Mgr. 8UB8CRIPTION PRICE: in the United States, Canada and Mexico $2.50 per year, Including postage J.$1.50 for six months. Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within the Postal Union, $4.50 per year. - Single copies, 10 cents. Payment should be made by Check, Money Order or Registered Letter, pay- able to The Citizen. Address all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1919, at the Postofflce at 8alt Lake Act March 3, 1879. of under the Utah, City, 3 Ness Bldg. 8alt Lake City, Utah. Phone Wasatch 5409. 311-12-1- CITY ENGINEER S ESTIMA TES PROVED ABSURD The Citizen has taken the trouble to investigate the estimates and figures of City Engineer Cannon and herewith presents facts and figures to demonstrate that he has made colossal blunders. Xot a few of our people will remember that some years ago, when the city was making plans to add to its water rights, Mr. Cannon delivered a lecture, aided and abetted by a map, to show that the new supply would meet the requirements of 300,000 inhabitants. Within two or three years after that date we suffered from a water shortage. Although the city obtained the additional rights and facilities, the water supply was insufficient for 130.000 people. Xow that Mr. Cannon estimates the water supply obtainable under the $3,300,000 proposition as adequate for 500,000 people, we are justified in doubting the accuracy of his estimates. As a matter of fact, using the annual meteorological summary of 1919, with comparative data, published by the Salt Lake office of the U. S. Weather Bureau, it is easy to show that Mr. Cannon has again fallen into error. It is largely on the basis of Mr. Cannon's estimates that the commissioners are advocating their $3,3CO,O0O bond grab. If his figures fail, the whole proposition falls to the ground insofar as it purports to be a definite solution of the water problem. It is true that the city, with its present- - augmented supply, will have sufficient water for several years, but it is equally true that even with the water to come from the new project there will not be a supply, in dry seasons, for 500,000, or 400,000, or even 00,000. And yet the engineer and the commissioners arc trying to delude the public into a belief that the bond issue will obtain water for a population of 500,000. Adopting the figures furnished in the comprehensive bulletin of the weather bureau, The Citizen finds that in a year of minimum water supply, there will be only 24,000.000.000 gallons in the entire valley, or a supply for only 246,000 inhabitants. Think of it The new plan which will cost us $3,300,000 will ! of the entire valley supply water for only 246,000 people if the run-ois secured. One of the arguments is that we must have more water for big industrial projects. If many such projects are established our per tipita consumption will be largely increased and the water supply will not be sufficient, perhaps, for even 200.000 people. We have before us the Annual Meteorological Summary for 1919, published by the lT. S. Weather Bureau office in Salt Lake City. I nder the heading, "Monthly and Annual Precipitation, which we understand includes rain and snow, appears a table show ff ing the amounts from 1874 to date. The mean annual amount for the forty-fiv- e years is given as 16.09 inches, though it has been as little as 10.33 inches and as great as 23.67 inches. The amount in 1919 was 82 per cent of the normal amount, and most Salt Lakers have not forgotten the restrictions that were placed on the watering of lawns for want of water. Yet it was on that seasons stream flow that the city engineer has made his estimate of 203 gallons per capita per day as a suitable average through the year. "This consumption of water varies, however, from about 150 gallons per capita daily in winter to as much as 350 gallons daily in summer, the city engineer writes in a recent newspaper symposium. Conceding that seasonal allowance to be ample, a cursory calcula-tio- n shows that the average daily per capita consumption is not 203 gallons but 234 gallons for the year. 1 he L0 gallons per capita daily consumption in winter is naturally confined to those months when there is no lawn or garden watering and when household consumption is reduced because of the cooler weather, namely, Xovember, December, January, February, March and April, if we may rely on the published weather data instead of our memory. Some outdoor watering must be done in both May and October, and the water consumption should therefore be raised, say to 250 gallons; and during the season of little rain and high temperatures, that is, from June to September, inclusive, the 350 gallons should be allowed. This makes the yearly average 234 instead of 203, as stated. This, however, is for an average year; for the long, hot summers. which come every five or six years, there must be added at least two months to the summer consumption rate, making the emergency per capita consumption rate 267 gallons daily for the year. Do we want a water system based on 203 gallons consumption, when every few years we will actually require 267. according to the citv engineer's own seasonal consumption estimates? Instead of a population of 500,000 requiring "101.5 million gallons id water daily, or 37 billion gallons annually," said population will actually require 117.0 million gallons daily, or nearly 43 billion gallons annually in an average year; and 133.5 million gallons daily, r nearly 49 billion gallons annually in the hot, dry seasons, one of which usually comes along before we have forgotten the preceding )1U Advocating the acquiring of the rights to all the water from the, Wasatch creeks, the engineers symposium further sets forth: "The otal flow from all these streams, as obtained from measurements |