Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-18
THE MUD WE DRINK.
A Glance at the Coffee -Colored Water
of a Week Just Gone.
A GREAT CLARIFYING PROJECT,
And What it Would Cost to Have an Ef-
fective Settling Reservoir.
CHAT WITH A MAN FAMILIAR WITH 1T

After erievery,sprng fresh q in therivers news
paper Offices are overwhelmed with letters of
complaint about muddy drinking water.
this usual custom. A special editor had to
be appointed to take charge of the ''muddy
water department. THE DISPATCH wishes
complainants to know that everything pos
sible is being done to clarity the aqua.
Perhaps by the time this is read you will
find that our efforts have succeeded, and
that the mud has entirely subsidized.
Some of the growlers, who imagine that
the payment of their little share of munich
pal taxes should give them immunity from
all the inconvenience of life and all the
ills that mankind is heir to, are so ungener-
GUS as to blame the Bureau of Water for
the presence of mud in the water. How
they could reason out such a responsibility
did not appear. Perhaps the tounda-
tion for the insinuation lay in the postal
card of another correspondent He alleged
that had the city water works been built on
the original plan, i. e., settling reservoir
on Brilliant Hill, Just half the height from
the river to Hiland Hill, honest taxpayers
would never have had to drink muddy
water.
THE CHARGE REFUTED.
A reporter yesterday informed Superin-
tendent Brown that his water department
was blamed by some people for conspiracy
in flooding the city with the yellow sedi-
ment instead of pure water. As soon as the
writer said settling reservoir" by way of
explanation, the Superintendent inter
rupted wearily with this remark:
"There's nothing in that theory. We
can't help it about this muddy water. Ma
ture alone is to blame. Listen: 1t would
require ten DAYS for reservoir of water to
settle so that the water would be perfectly
clean. mean by that that we would have
to stop pumping into that reservoir for ten
days. AS it is now, our double reservoir on
Hiland hill has a capacity of 10000, 900
gallons. This is equal to only four days
supply if the engines were stopped, but even
then it is not a perfect supply, for you see
after about two days the water in the basin
would have reeeded so much that the higher
portions of the city would experience a
scarcity.
WHAT is NECESSARY.
''To let the water stand for ten DAYS to
settle we would have to have another reser-
voir with a capacity equal to the two now
used. That would cost the city $500, 900,
and would be equal to one-third of a mill
additional tax on the public. 1t would be
cheaper for people who are consumers to
buy filter for their houses. The Brilliant
Hill reservoir, had it been completed as
stated, would have only given capacity for
sc, O,O00, 900 additional gallons of water"
The complaints of muddy water came
principally from Lawrenceville, the hill
districts and Oakland. Housewives COM
planned bitterly about it and doctors threat
ened to give patients beer instead of mud.
Careful school teachers advised their chill
dren to boil the water before drinking.
Superintendent Brown explains that when
a freshet comes the creeks, brooks, tributary
rivers and the Allegheny itself cuts into the
yellow clay banks, thus carrying away tons
of soil. That is what makes Allegheny
water SO cloudy-not the water works.