The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-07-30
A RESERVOIR.

The season Is making people desperate IN
the matter of water supply. A good many
of them are unreasonable, and the utter
ances of some would indicate large degree
of insanity. The blame for the water short
age is put upon the city council, when the
council is as innocent of reducing the sup
ply as it is of increasing the temperature of
the atmosphere; and it is as free from
any desire to iniure the city or hurt indi-
viduals. The distress is an affection by
nature, and not one of mans bringing, and
man should not be held responsible.
But this and future councils should find
in what we are now suffering an emphatic
incentive to determined effort. There is
no record of such dry season as this
one. We may never experience an
other such summer But the fact that
there is a drouth should cause US to do what
can be done to provide against future dis
asters of the kind. 1t will not do to trust to
the elements, as has been abundantly demon
strated. We must help ourselves or suffer
from our negligence.
THE HERALD is not now going TO advo-
cate the construction of reservoir in City
creek canon. The Johnstown catastrophe
of a few weeks ago makes it almost unsafe
to suggest the storage of large bodies Of
water above cities. At the same time we
may mention that during March, April and
May of any year more water runs to waste
down City creek than would be required
by a city twice as large as Salt
Lake and containing four times as
many inhabitants. In ordinary years the
water which flows to waste in May is more
than would be consumed in an entire sea
son. There have been years when the
water which ran down City creek in the
spring would have supplied the city liber
ally for ten years.
Now, is it possible to construct dam
which will be absolutely safe: Are there
any such dams in America, or on the earth?
It will not be urged by intelligent people
that safe dams cannot be built, and it will
not be denied that there are safe dams in
existence. The construction of such
dam is simply question of en-
gineering skill and money. With
that combination, a reservoir can
be built which will be absolutely secure, if
anything on earth can be made secure.
Under the circumstances, in the gloom of
the present and the threat of the future,
| would it not be an act of wisdom on the
| part of the city council to make thorough
| investigation of the matter of dam across
City creek, and the conversion of that
canon into a reservoir! Can the money
which such inquiry would cost be better
spent in the interest of the public! If the
Of N q Y;c,, of
the canon are such that an absolutely safe
reservoir can be constructed at such
cost as the municipality can bear,
we do not believe there will be
objection to the undertaking. A reservoir
which would hold the water of City creek,
would solve for all time the water problem
of Salt Lake city, and put quietus on the
numerous schemes, many of them idle and
visionary, for the purchase of this stream
and that one, for getting supply from this
lake and drawing from that source A
reservoir with strength and capacity would
make Salt Lake forever Independent, for
her water supply could not be cut off.
THE HERALD does not now advocate the
reservoir, but it does suggest the wisdom
of the council taking immediate steps to
ascertain all that can be learned
with reference to the construction of
a dam at some eligible point
in thu canon, the depth to bedrock the cost
of the undertaking, the time of building,
the capacity of the reservoir, and so on, and
that in making the investigation the best
engineering ability available be employed.
We urge this because it must be plain to
everybody that the Cottonwood streams are
now beyond tbs financial reach of the city.
the Utah lake offers anything but encour-
agement to look in that direction, and no
where else can we turn for the relief which
must come if Salt Lake is 10 grow beyond
its present limits, or if the city is to con-
tinue the Joy and pride of its owners and
its inhabitants. Having ascertained all
the facts, there can be given an intelligent
decision by the council and by the people