Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1884-05-30
Brooks as Sewers.
Sanitary Engineer.

| When a natural watercourse
traverses a town and it's banks become
built upon, the easiest way of getting
rid of filth and house wastes is to
throw them into the stream. Every
mans instructive impulse is to get rid
of what annoys him, and not to mind
how his neighbor will be affected.
After while, when the watercourse
has become sufficiently nasty. tine
people come to a realizing sense of
what they have brought upon them
selves, and then they try to devise a
remedy. In this they begin usually at
the wrong end They look on the
stream rs creating the nuisance, and
don't consider that it is their abuse of
the stream that is the source of the
trouble. SO they go to work and
cover the stream up and call it sewer.
What is the result2 Simply that the
stencil of the foul matter in the old
channel is bottled up somewhat, to be
vented through every hole, every
house drain, and probably do more
real injury han when the rotting filth
was exposed to the air and the sun,
and dlffused its aroma through the
| whole atmosphere.
The channel of a small natural
stream through town or village
ought never to be converted into a
sewer for house wastes. This will
strike a good many people as an odd
doctrine, but still it is a sound doctrine.
| The functions of a natural stream and
sewer are SO diversified that one
cannot be made to do duty for the
other
| A natural water course serves for
the drainage of the land all along its
| course, Its banks cannot be made
watertght without obstructing the
natural progress of the water in the
soil and backing it up ard retaining
it where it ought not to be retained
A sewer, on the other hand, is intend
ed to carry off foul matters which
must be gotten rid of as quickly as
| possible, and the channel for con
veying them must be absolutely i'm
perviou1, SO that nothing can soak
through it to the soil. AS, the level
of the water in the soil rises and falls
with the season and the amount of
rain, an open jointed or pervious
channel would sometimes admit
water from the soil and sometimes
permit fluids flowing in the channel
above the level of the ground water
, to flow out, and thus pcllute the soil
and the air in the soil
| Again. a natural stream draining a
considerable territory is subject to
| great variations in its volume. A
channel to carry its extreme discharge
in floods must be many times larger
than can ever be necessary for the
carriage of the greatest amount of
sewerage that car be brou eht to it.
| A large channel is not suited to the
rapid removal of a small flow of filthy
! fluids. and, moreover, costs a great
| deal more than sewer of the proper
size Even if the large channel for a
| auctuatlng stream is built through a
village the sewage should not be
turned into it unless the minimum
volume of the natural flow in the.
/ dryest seasons is large enough to keep
the channel thoroughly secured
Thsre are good many small towns
! which have for years gotten along
| without sewers and have arched over
| natural watercourses running through
/ the heart of the town. but are now
| impelled by the sanitary revival
! to construct sewers removing house
hold wastes. The first impulse is to
| utilize the covered streams TO save the
expense of constructing few humid
red feet of sewer They should be
very careful how they proceed. 1t is
better to spend little more money
and be safe, than to economic in first
! cost and spend ten times the saving
IN doctors fees and undertakers' bulls.