Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-30

and the slough. That, we have no hesita-
ton in declaring, is and always will be in
sufficient. The engineers have so reported
dozen times, and during twenty years of
pottering with the canal we have had no
other answer but this: The canals fall is
unequal to carriage of the drainage of the
city.
In the late summer possible current
may be maintained, but for seven months
in the year the canal is of no use to the
city
The street Improvement question hav-
ing been put upon its feet fairly, the next
to have consideration is that of city drain
age. 1t is even more important than street
improvement, for it involves the public
health. 1t grows in Importance, because
every street we improve augments the ra-
pidity with which drainage is discharged
into the sewers, and thus makes Sewer
choking" more likely and frequent.
We do not believe that our drainage
will ever be made satisfactory by any natu
raj fall available, and therefore the use of
money by the city in patching up and cut
ting deeper the drainage canal is uneco-
nomical. In the winter season we must
pump out the city dra mage, as We have
been doing in an Indifferent way, for some
years. The question remaining therefore
is that of disposal.
The most economic method is to lift the
drainage, discharge it into fume and
run it into the river. The route Of such
fume will not exceed third of mile.
The lifting is perfectly feasible, and the
city even in the heaviest winter can be
kept dry and the street drains empty, by
procuring proper pump. There is one
such in the Pearson district throwing out
with but little lift 100000 gallons min
ute, or 100000 an hour or 100000
gallons in full day. There is one at the
foot of Grand Island that discharges with
but little lifting 10000 gallons minute,
or 100000 an hour, or 57.600,000 in a
full day. If lift of fifteen feet is required
here, pumps can be put in at not heavy
cost that will discharge fully half the
amount first named, and that will handle
all the waterfall and drainage within the
catchment area of the city summer and
winter.
If we should be forbidden to discharge
into the rlyer-but we do not believe we
would, since river pollution would not
necessarily follow-what, then, could the
city do better than adopt the idea of
broadening and deepening and completing
the drainage canal? We reply that it
would be more economic by far 10 lift our
drainage to get sufficient fall and then con-
duct it in fume so far down the line of
the canal as is necessary to greatly facili-
tate the discharge into Snodgrass slough,
to which, in that case, the canal must be
completed.
We are not prepared to say what the cost
of such aume or pipeline would be, but
venture the suggestion that mile of
hume will cost less than mile Of dredg-
ing as proposed. Thin iron pipes of great
diameter are now procurable in the mount
aims at a nominal cost, since SO many min
ing water-pipe lines have been abandoned.
These would serve US for decade with
proper care, but it is possible that huming
will cost even less than piping and prove
equally as serviceable.
In any phase of the question-and it is
one Sacramento cannot longer shirk and
that ought to be grappled with now and
disposed of-we must lift our drainage to
secure proper fall. We are prepared to
maintain that proposition, and entertain
the belief that it is the cheapest
and best means of securing good drain
age. There is not an engineering
expert in the land who will risk his
professional reputation by asserting
that we can get good drainage for this city
by natural fall. Why, then, should we
waste any more money in attempting the
impossible? Let US resolve to put in
pump of sufficient capacity this fall. 1t
will cost but triAe more to operate it
than it does the poor affair we now have.
We will conserve the city purse, therefore,
by abandoning the make-shift. The pump
once put in, and the cost will not be nearly
SO great as is supposed by many, the
question of disposal can be taken up,
whether into the river, or by fume to
point below 1.-THE Pocket" and thence by
the line of the canal and through it,
when properly cleared out.