Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1880-08-18
SUGGESTIONS ABOUT SEWERS.
Advantage of Excluding Storm
Wafer Report OF Col. &. Il.
Waring, Jr.


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The bulletin Of the national board
of health, for August, contains the re.
port Of Colonel George Il. Waring, ir.
on the gauging in sewers in different
parts OF the country under his direc-
tion during the past year. The pur-
pose Of these gaugings was to deter.
mine the size Of the greatest amount
of sewage matter produced by given
populations Among the sewers test
ed were the Pine street sewer in
Providence and the sewer of the state
lunatic asylum at Taunton, Mass. in
the latter case it was found that a
three inch sewer, with flow of the
present velocity, would be sufficient
to discharge all the sewage which
goes through the ten inch sewer. Col
oncl Waring says it is worthy of re-
mark that it has been proposed that
the state should pay one-half the cost
of tve-foot sewer, because of its con.
tributing to the sewage of the town
the small stream which would be
amply accommodated by a six-inch
pipe. Colonel Waring makes the fol-
lowing interesting observations in
his report: 1T has been al
most the universal question up
to this time in planning a system of
sewers for town, large or small, to
regulate the size of the sewers with
view to the removal, not only the do
nestle and manufacturing wastes, but
also Of considerable amount of rain
fall. This custom is open to several
objections. First, sewers large enough
for the removal of storm water are SO
much too large for domestic sewage
that they must inevitably be foul and
in bad sanitary condition except
when flushed by storm water. As
storm water is often withheld for
many weeks together, and often at a
season when the decomposition of de-
posits in the sewer is most active and
injurious, this condition constitutes a
very grave sanitary defect. Second.
while the cost Of storm water sewers
may be borne with tolerable ease in
city where the whole abutting proper
ty is built up, the distribution of such
charge among the scattered inhab-
itants of more village like town,
where lot fronts are often very much
larger than in the city, constitutes
serious burden, so serious, indeed,
as to be in many instances prohibitory.
Third, aside from tho foul air pro
duoed in the sewers themselves, the
decomposition of the filth that accu.
mulates in the catch basins by which
street water is admitted to the sewers,
is often source of more serious of.
fense, if not Of danger. Fourth, by
extending the underground removal
of storm water to the very crests of
the elevation of town, the
gutter flow, even at points where it
could cause no Inconvenience, is so
much reduced as to prevent the cleans
ing of the cutters, which would other
wise be effected with each storm. So
serious are the objections above cited,
that | have found in more than one
case serious opposition to the con-
struction Of sewers on the part of
local sanitary authorities. In Balti-
more, for example, where the removal
not only OF surface water but of liquid
wastes of households is effected by
surface drainage only, a very in6uen-
tial portion Of the community strenu-