Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-12-05
THE DRAINAGE CANAL NUISANCE
AGAIN

The County Supervisors have passed a
resolution inviting the City Trustees to
send committee to confer with a commit
tee from the Board of Supervisors to arrive
at some plan for improving the damage
canal and abating its present offensive
character.
So far as conference is concerned there
: is nothing Objectionable in that. But any
idea of molding that conference to the
scheme of patching up and cleaning out
the drainage canal and leaving it upon its
present levels will be absurd and down.
right stupidity. There is not an owner of
private property in the State with so little
sense, if he had such a ditch upon his
land, as to attempt to Improve it." He
would abate the nuisance at once, and
search out some other agency for disposing
of the sewerage and the drainage waters of
his land.
Why should municipalities be less wise
than individuals? The situation is a
simple one. We have drainage canal
twenty-one miles long, not cut through to
tide-water, however, at the farther end,
the exit of which, if it were cut through,
would be at mean tide higher than the
point at which we empty the city's drain
age into it. 1t cannot be sunk deeper, for
its line is through tile lowest possible
levels of the bottom and swamp lands.
Practically, then, the effort to make the
canal carry the drainage is to attempt to
make water run up hill. A new scheme,
however, is to "cover part of the canal"
as if that would prevent it giving off
foul vapors and poisonous gases, or increase
its carrying capacity. To cover it would
be an excellen@ scheme for throwing
plenty of city and county money into the
canal, but it would not serve as either
deodorizer or to give the stagnant waters
motion seward.
There are but two plans in the present
worthy of any consideration whatever, re-
latIng to the discharge of drainage and
sewerage. One is to build hume from Y
street to tide-water-an open, elevated
Hume or any other kind that will give the
fluids rapid motion toward tide-water.
This motion in itself is powerful purify
ing agency, as it reduces oxidation.
This plan, it can be proven, will cost less
than to cover or attempt to dig out the
canal, and this including in the estimate
the cost of lifting pumps. The city
has been offered already pumping machin-
cry sufficient to lift the drainage to new
elevation, for the saving in the cost of the
fuel required for any other lifting power
However, there are score of pumps equal
to the task.
The second plan is to place pumps of
sufficient capacity at the junction of Front
and Y streets, and lift the drainage
through or over the levee into the river.
This plan is, of course the most economic,
and even if tried and abandoned, very
little cost will be risked, since the ma
chinery will remain for use thereafter in
other discharge of the sewerage and drain
age.
The people should take hold of this
matter and advise their officials as to the
best policy to be pursued. Conscientious
officers will be glad to have the people ex-
press themselves upon the subject.
The day will come when we will aban-
don the cesspools of the city, draw the
solid waste by pneumatic power to COM
mon exit and there reduce it by heat,
evaporating the moisture and chemically
purifying the liquids. But that will be
wears hence. The question is what to do
now, and we challenge successful contra
diction of the proposition that the only
thing that can be done is to lift the drain
age to a new level of departure This can
be accomplished. One-half the money we
have spent upon the canal in ten years and
upon Intellectual pumping at Eighth and
Y streets would have given us the costlier
of the two systems we have outlined. We
are at present acting in the most unecon-
omie manner possible. Let it be hoped
that we will not by patchwork upon
canal that is wrong end up make the
whole business idiotic.
yvrp.u.csyr rypEcTATToNS