Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-12-03
FACTS AND FIGURES.
A Review of Engineer Hertng's Report
 on the Water Supply.

Review of Engineer Hertng's Report
 on the Water Supply.
 In the communication of the board of water commissioners to the court of common council we read: elf there had been at the beginning of the present year four hundred million gallons in storage, the capacity of the proposed Hop brook reservoir, we should have had with our present reservoirs full, over five hundred million gallons in reserve. The daily flow of our present supply is esti- mated at one million gallons and that of Hop brook one and seven-tenths million gallons per day without drawing on the reserve. The daily flow and the reserve would furnish four million gallons per day for the year."
 Let us suppose that the work required to make the talked of reservoir on Hop brook was finished. It would take 2S5 days to fill it, for 400, ,000,000 gallons, the capacity of said reservoir, includes the number of gallons that is said to flow daily through Hop brook. Then we would have to wait 235 days after the work was finished to let the reser- voir fill up. In the same communication from the board of water commissioners we read
 "The daily flow and the reserve would furnish four millions gallons per day for the year. (Meaning no doubt for one year,) For with 400,000,0 ,0O0 gallons in Hop brook reservoir, 100, ,000, 900 gal Ions in our present reservoirs, 620, ,00O,- 900 gallons the yearly amount of the the yearly amount of the flow into our present reservoir, we have in all ], ,4e5, ,000, ,000 gallons. Now daily con- sumption of four million gallons for one year would be 1,460, ,000, ,000 gallons In other words 8 daily consumption of four million gallons would empty our present reservoirs and the proposed Hop brook reservoir in one year, excepting twenty five million gallons, which might have been lost m evaporation. What should we do for water? Should ! the reservoirs fill up again and drink beer in the meantime?
 In the same communication of the | board of water commissioners to the city government there is an extract l from MT Hering's report, commencing as follows: "Had the Hop brook project l been carried out at the time, etc" to | which should have been added the re- mainder of MT Hering's opinion, to wit: demands the consideration of greater watershed in providing works for the future" Report, page 34.
 And MT Herring further says in his | report, page 31, that Hop brook, together with our present gravity water works, would not serve the city longer than | 1896, that is three years from next Jan uary, so that if the reservoir and works connected with Hop brook as a water supply should take three years to con struct the very day the works would be completed the city would be short of a full supply. Again the dear city fathers would be most humbly supplicated to have another supply and another appro- priation voted, and Quassapaug would be put forth in glowing colors as the most available site. But Mir Herring g says in page 31 of his report that Quassa- | paug added would. serve the city only until 1904. Then the most we could count on from the west would be sup ply for ten years, and who will estimate the cost?
 The board of water commissioners ask for half a million dollars to begin with | Have the citizens any guarantee that even that large amount would be 1enough? There is another thing that initiates against the bringing of water for long distance in iron pipes: It Ii the fact that iron pipes so used will have to be renewed on an average every 20 ol | ~O yCdAos lb uoPcAu0 uOOA oAO NOAAOoANS quality of the water that passes througE them and that of the soil in which they are laid. It is estimated that the pipes alone from Quassapaug to Hop brook and from Hop brook to the corner o1 West Main and North Main streets would cost $149, ,220.
 It would be too tedious here to sum marize all the claims of mills, hotels land damages, right of way, cost o1 reservoirs, etc, that would have to bt adjusted. It might be Itruly said tha paying pretty dear for our whistles, anc not wholesome drinking material a that. AS compared with Lindley brook and Chestnut hill, according to { report of the water commissioners II 1S9O, Quassapaug comes third, ant Hop brook last, as to purity of water It is no wonder, for MT Herring finds II the catchment area of Hop brook III acres of swamp, and the chemist, MI Smith, to whom samples from all th' proposed sources of supply were sub mitted, says that the samples from Hol brook show that this water is ditferen from all the others on account of thu large amount of dissolved matter and O nitrates, and is of greater hardness Nitrates are the product of organic con tamination, and this is the chief caus for concern in connection with the us of Hop brook as a water supply.
 If our citizens would but see thi
 water in the summer months, where l rises from it's source, the swamp, am
 crosses the road that runs north an
 south, just this side of Quassapaug,, t
 the right, going out, they would requir
 no emetics for years to come. It
 black, dirty and contaminated, an
 stink consequence.