Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-03-09
THE SEWAGE.
How Will It Be Disposed
OFF,
ENGINEER CULvER's OPINION
He Submits a Plan That Ii Not SO
Costly as the Proposed
System.

System.
Property owners of this city have
waited patiently for q high-priced
opinion and programme from an eastern
source, to teach them something about
the way to handle our sewer problem,
and are about to vote on it for the second
time. The old saying, "that you must
90 away from home to learn the news" I"
is illustrated in this case, when the City
Council sent 5000 miles from home for
An expert to come here and razzle.dszzle
US, and who came like quick fash,
binding us for the time, and as suddenly
departed. We have now partially recov-
cred from this metsoric light, and find
that we have been left mere wslk-over
in sewer easiness, by estimates for our
little city to bond itself for the mere trifle
of 81, ,597, 800. Distance lends enchant.
ment to the view," and We know pre-
cisely what we knew before, i. e.. that
we have to build sewers in the city pro-
per, Whlcn IL not
COMPLEX ENGINEERING PROBLEM.
but to engineers of fair education and ex-
perience, q very practical matter and
not attended by any serious difficulties
ct all.
A simple area calculation for capacity,
and q selection of gradient routes which
nature has provided for outlets by q
natural drainage, and on the principle
that water will run down hill, does not
require any great imported talent to
demonstrate, and especially in this
country where people are naturally
educated by the irrigation of lands and
handling of water. But we have no So
luton of the problem of utilizing our
sewage beyond what we knew at home,
and which does us no good, and for
which large sum has been paid an ex.
pert to repeat to us.
GUIDING LIGHTS.
We have before us the practical exps-
rience of hundreds and thousands of cities
and towns, at home and abroad, that have
been we'll severed and drained, and with
all the adjuncts of sanitary appliances,
engineering skill and the most recent
practices in the art of building sewer
works to date. So far as talent is con.
cerned In the mere laying of sewer, il
Is conceded that any experienced brick or
vltrlfisd pipe-layer or mason is master of
all the simple details of construction, and
requires but sub-grade stakes at proper
intervals to guide the line of water run,
and which grades are about the most
simple problem in field-work engineering
What has been required from the begin
ming has been some genius to tell us what
we could do, practically, with the refuse
sewer water collected at three points near
the southerly boundary of the city. Has
anyone given us anything new on that
point, or anything we did not know
already?
THE CITIZENS SEWER COMMITTEE
Examined these questions in fair and
painstaking manner. They spent their
time freely and were sctuated by mo-
tives of great earnestness, and accom-
plished good deal toward solution of
the problem of utilizing the sewage, and
pointed out various practical ways of
doing SO. They suggested the procure
ment OF right OF way to the sea, they
pointed out the ways of using the partly
purified Sc wage for the use OF farmers,
partly based upon uses elsewhere. They
brought ont facts, some of them of
startling importance, such az an en-
hancement of the value of land that
rented without sewage for 50 so per acre
to $50 and $25 per acre with it. And
above all, that the entire works could be-
we'll built and abundantly capacious for
all uses for many years to come, COM
plete.
FOR SUM NOT EXCEEDING 81 900,
Including sea outlet, all to be done on
q rational business basis. and no nom
sense or waste connected with it.
And still, in face of these well-known
local facts, we are told bv the expert of
the City Council, brought here 5000
miles at an expense of $l,275, that our
sewage cannot be treated for the uses we
desire for less than 80 to rs cents per
capita per year for each inhabitant
Citing Providence, R. l., as an example,
at 30 cents per head. and Orange, N. j.,
as another, at rs cents per head.
WHAT ANALOGY
Can possibly be drawn as between these
two cities and Los Angeles as to sewage
waste, it is hard to discover. Tue two
former cities named are situated in a
rainy country, where moisture is suf1i.
cient the year around, and where super.
natsnt sewer water can be of no earthly
value, but, on the contrary, a waste
nuisance to be gotten rid of, and if the
treatment is made of the sewage it is be-
cause it is to rid it of solid matter and te
turn the valueless, to them, resultant
fluid into the nearest outlet to mitigate
in some measure what other wise would
be greater nuisance.
HOW OFTEN
Will it be necessary to reiterate these
things, and submit to their sophistry at.
tempted to be used continually to throw
dust in the eyes of the thinking people
who have too much intelligence not to
see it; and show that what has not
proved profitable or suitable in other
climates is diamstrically reversed here ?
We admit that there is little value in
solids of sewage matter, but who is there
that can deny for this climate that even
the partly purified sewage water cannot
be prepared, fitting it for agricultural
purposes for less than so to rs cents per
inhabitant per year?
1t ia likely that
Furnished this city is about 5, 600, ,000
OF gallons every twenty-four hours. This
is about go gallons per head for 80, 600
people. OF this amount there could not,
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