OCR Text |
Show THE CITIZEN S EXPERT FINDS FATAL FLAWS IN CITY ENGINEERS WATER PLAN THAT the proposed water system entirely inadequate, even for present needs, that it would cost the city, upon completion, $4,250,000, if made safe by filtration and withnot be made safe that it could out a modern filtration plant, are the conclusions reached .by Mr. Charles F. Brown, consulting civil engineer of Salt Lake City, who was requested by The Citizen to make an analysis of the plans as outlined by the city eir-ginee-r. At the outset Mr. Brown was astonished to find no written detailed -- plans of the system for which it is proposed to spend the $3,300,000 if that sum is voted by the taxpayers. Obviously the commissioners are asking this enormous sum without having committed to detail their plans. It was, therefore, necessary for Mr. Brown to make his analysis on the outline, vague at best, furnished by the city engineer. Sufficient data was at hand, however, to show him that the city pgineers figures were inaccurate and that it would be necessary, in order that pure water might be provided, to add the cost of a filtration plant. And this was in addition to other costs necessary to be added because of the inadequacy of the city engineers estimates. Submitting his report, Mr. Brown writes: Salt Lake City, Utah, Mar. 11, 1920. To The Citizen: I herewith respectfully submit for your consideration, my finding in the analysis of the plans for water supply for Salt Lake City as outlined by the City Engineer, in the Mar. 7, 1920, issue of The Salt Lake Tribune, and as obtained in greater or less detail from Mr. Cannon him self, and his assistants, including Mr. Burton of the City Waterworks De- partment. ' In addition, I have had the 1916 report of the City Engineer, and advance sheets of the Hydrographic Survey for the Engineers Report for 1920, together with what drawings and other papers were matters of record in the City Engineers office. I wish to say that Mr. Cannon and his assistants, including Commissioner Neslen, offered me every courtesy and assistance possible under existing conditions, in getting at the basic data for this analysis. Very truly yours, CHARLES F. BROWN. Mr. Browns report is as follows: Analysis of plans for water supply for Salt Lake City, as outlined by the City Engineer, and to be provided for by the bond issue of $3,300,000 to be voted on March 31, 1920. Objects of analysis: Adequacy, feasibility and desirability for present and future needs. ADEQUACY OF PRESENT AND FUTURE SOURCE OF SUPPLY. On a basis of 350 gallons per capita per day maximum monthly and daily consumption, Salt Lake City needs a source of supply capable of delivering to its population 70,000,000 gallons per day. The city was supplied during the year 1919 with an average of slightly more than 26,000,000 gallons per day With the very hot and dry summer months prevailing in Salt Lake City, for culinary and sprinkling purposes its citizens should be supplied with an average daily allowance of 300 gallons per capita per day. The plans of the City Engineers of- - five provide an average of 203 gallons dally, and the source of supply must be of sufficient adequacy to deliver under continued drought conditions somewhat more than 350 gallons per day. The proposed plans contemplate the storage of water in sixteen small reservoirs, the largest of which will contain only sufficient water for twenty-on- e days supply. During such seasons the run-of- f from water sheds on which there is no storage is extremely light, so that the stored water must be depended on almost entirely. This is especially true in seasons like 1919, when there has been a light snowfall during the previous winter. It will thus be seen that measured in terms of even present adequacy, the proposed plans, doing all that the designers claim for them, are entirely inadequate. COST CONSIDERATIONS: The above mentioned Engineer's re- ports show that the estimated cost of this system, exclusive of the item of $329,000 for feeder and distributing mains, will be $2,980,000. The Mountain Dell reservoir in Parleys Canyon has cost $90,000, or $100 per acre foot of water stored, if filled only once during the season, and $50 per acre foot if filled twice, as it is claimed it can be. The present estimate includes an item of $290,000 for putting an additional forty feet on this dam, which will make the total capacity 3,000 acre feet, or a cost of $96.67 per acre foot. My conclusion regarding this phase of the question is that the water. will cost under the present plan from two to four times what it should, and what it may be obtained for from other sources. QUALITY OF WATER THUS AFFORDED: Every citizen of the city knows that for a number of years past, either the City Board of Health or the State Board' of Health has warned the inhabitants, through the daily news- papers, many times, that the water was unsafe, by reason of its content, and that our only protection lay in boiling the water used for drinking purposes. In addition to this menace, for which there is no remedy offered or estimate made, the waters are invariably high in silt and mud content during the spring months of the year, which most likely is an additional menace to the health of the citizens of the city, and at least very objectionable upon aesthetic grounds. I therefore pronounce ihe quality of the water inferior under the present plans, and would estimate that the bond issue should be increased, if this plan is adopted, by at least $950,000, making the total system cost $3,930,-00exclusive of the above mentioned item for additional feeder and distributing mains. bac-terialogic- al 0, SUMMARY: The proposed plan is entirely inadequate for even the present needs of the city. 2. It would cost the city, upon completion, $4,250,000, if made safe by filtration. 3. It could not be made safe without a modern and efficient filtration plant, with the additional cost. Respectfully submitted, 1. CHAS. F. BROWN. Salt Lake City, Utah, March 11, 1920. board that the Cuban sugar crop be purchased at five and a half cents per pound. The report lacked only the vote of Professor Taussig to is apt to be the death of Attorney General Palmer not make it unanimous and the President, with a perversity that has beSUGAR of the attorney in his own proper person, but of what is come familiar, approved the finding of the professor. Last November sugar was selling for 11 or 12 cents a pound. It just as important to him his candidacy for President. of makSome months ap we called attention to the fact that the attorney was then that the attorney general discovered a sure means the price soar. Without the slightest legal authority he entered general was a target for the amusement, even the hilarity of fellow ing were to Democrats. He had been placed at the head of the Department ot into an agreement with the southern producers whereby they 17 to 18 cents per pound for sugar at the plantation. To Justice and told to lower prices and it was understood that if he made charge from this, of course, would be added transportation charges, brokerage, etc. good Mr. Wilson would let him run for President. The Presidents refusal to purchase the Cuban. sugar crop made Here was a modern Hercules told to go forth and conquer whatit possible for the Cubans to bring their price up to the level of the ever task might be set before him by the will of the gods or Woodrow southern sugar. The President could have closed the Cuban sugar Wilson. Quite naturally, the other Democratic candidates were dedeal at 62 cents a pound, but he let the opportunity slip through his could stand word. of the in the full Rooseveltian sense They lighted hands. And the attorney general, when he fixed the price of Louisiana while of straw or around gossiping, whitling they chewing wisps almost automatically fixed the price of Cuban sugar at the watched George do it. It was not necessary for them to toil or to sugar, same level. Estimated in dollars that blunder will cost the American A. Mitchell while to watch do was to were all that ; expected spin they people almost a billion this year. Palmer 'worked. Whether Attorney General Palmer's bid for southern support he more worked the more did The work. And Mitchell certainly has gained him any or many southern delegations, we cannot know, his critical audience laughed. And just when he had become the for we are not in the counsels of southern Democrats. Put even so, country's one big joke he announced his candidacy for the President. it appears to have been a suicidal blunder. It seems to have hung just Primarily, of course, the President is to blame for the high price another millstone about his neck. It makes him about as popular of sugar. It was he who' ignored the recommendation, of his own among the mass of the American people as a flu germ. PALMERS SUGAR SOP m |