The Portland daily press., 1878-07-11
Water Supply.

Since the present hot spell set in the citizens
in wards and have been greatly troubled by
reason of their water supply being cut off in
the day time by the reckless, useless waste of
water on the lower levels of the city, resulting
| from continually running water in offices and
houses to keep it cool and for use in gardens
and other causes incident to the use of water
A few facts about our water supply, what is
being done and what the Water Company are
about to do may be of interest to our citizens.
Lake Sebago is II miles from Portland. The
Company have already laid from the Lake to
Wards Hill IL miles from Portland double
main Zone 20 inch and one 26 inch) thus bring
ing the Lake practically within IL miles of th e
city. From that point 20 inch main conveys by
gravitation the water which is supplied to our
citizens. If one will compute the capacity of
this pipe it will be found that
it is equal to the delivery of about
100000 gallons per day or 10000
per hour. Since October 1875 this supply has
been continuous up to the present time except
June 18th and Goth of the present year when
the water was shut off the main at Stroudwater
to connect Portland street main. And during
those two days only, the city was supplied
direct from the reservoir on Bramhall Hill. Be-
fore shutting off the main there servor was filled
full. and careful computation made of the
draft on its contents during the time the
direct supply was shut off from the city, and it
was found that the draft was at the rate of g..
04S,000 gallons for "a hours When this amount
is distributed among the 10000 water takers
carried on the books of the company as con-
sumers it gives each man, woman and child
$50 gallons per day, and this too when there
was but partial supply on the upper levels
both in wards ani7, and it as being used
between Stroudwater Corner and Portland.
This shows conclnsively that the main leading
to the lake has the capacity and does deliver
daily the amount claimed for it. In order to
better determine as to the amount wasted let
us compare Portlands supply with that of
Fall River for thelyear 1877. From recent
article in the Engineering News we find that
the average monthly supply for the year was
SOL gallons-the smallest month was in
December 953O4O gallons, the largest August
1872, 1856 gallons, the estimated number of
consumers was $4,000, giving to each person in
December 30 and 74-100 gallons aud in August
AZ and S2-100 gallons per day or yearly
average of only Al and 9l-l0O gallons daily.
This includes water run to prevent freezing
pipes in winter and for cool drinking water in
summer. These facts 60 to show that the
Portland Water Company are doing; all for
Portland that reasonable citizens could ask or
expect any company to do, but the fact that
many of the water takers in wards and Z are
at present (not by any fault of the water sup
ply getting but a partial supply, the
directors of the company have determined to
begin at once the construction of second
main into Portland, thus giving two indepen-
dent and separate mains. The iron for this
main has already been contracted for, and the
work will begin at once.
Will not the water MASTERS down town, after
using all they want, just ''shut eli" and let
those living up town have little of their
abundance WARD SEVEN.