Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1889-07-14
BEYOND PRECEDENT.
Old Employees Astouished at the Amount
of Mud In the Reservoir.

Old Employees Astouished at the Amount
of Mud In the Reservoir.
No one not an eyewitness to the clean
ing of the city reservoir yesterday morn
ing would quite believe an exact outline OF
the situation there, as it was revealed to
the employees of the water department, af-
ter the water in the basin was drawn OF,
preparatory to the inauguration of work.
Old employees about the works were ap-
palled at the amount of mud and slime
which was exposed to view, and Superin-
tendent John Cummins said in all his long
experience he never saw anything to equal
it or even apprOachit.
John Farley, who has been in the de-
partment for generation, said there was
about three times as much sediment in
the two compartments as ne ever saw be-
fore, and others confirmed his estimate.
The north compartment of the basin,
which is also the smallest, is the one in
which the pipe leading from the new
pumps discharges it volume of water, and
the cubic capacity of the compartment was
reduced fully one-half by the great mass
offilth. Over most of the area it was
piled in a solid mass four to five and a
half feet thick, and when the water was
let off, the men who descended into the
hole sank up to their waists in the mud,
even when the places containing the small
est amount were picked out. So deep wss
the mud, that the men experienced o good
deal of trouble in getting started to work,
and for long time their progress was very
slow.
In the south and largest compartment,
the mud was not quite go deep, varying
from a foot and half to three feet. Here
the deposit in former years has been from
eight to ten inches, and the difference
could be seen at aglsnce. Estimating the
contents of the two reservoirs at 700, 600
gallons, there must have been quarter of
a million gallons of mud in them, and the
work of cleaning it out was prolonged dur
ing good part of the hours of daylight,
although work was commenced at mid
night.
And how the stuff did smell! A REG
lister man went up to the reservoir about
two o'clock Saturday morning. When he
struck Market street at the intersection of
Eighth the odor first became perceptible
and as ne went on up the hill and cut
across to the basin the smell
became more and more pronounced.
At the immediate vicinity of the en-
closure the odOr was very strong, and in
side was decidedly disgusting. The mud
deposited by the water was as fine as flour
and about OF the consistency of thin paste.
A connoisseur in such matters might have
detected any number of separate and dis
tinct smells arising from the mass, and
prominent among them was marked
odor of kerosene, or something so nearly
allied thereto as TO be indistinguishable to
the laymsn. 1t WAS enough TO make
water drinker swear off.
OF course, the frequent rains of the past
few months are responsible for the great in
crease in the amount ofmud in the basin and
that fact suggests the thought that in such
or better still, in every season,
the basin ought TO be suhject to more
frequent cleanings. To have four or five
feet OF refined filth lying in the reservoir is
hardly satisfactory condition of affairs.