The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1893-08-23
NORTH BRANCH.
PROPOSED Means of Sanitation.

For some two years there has been a
steady and gratifying improvement in the
public health of Montpelier, and during the
present season it has been exceptionally
good. The bill of health the village can ex-
hibit to-day can hardly be rivaled by the
larger communities of the state. This happy
result may be fairly traceable to the various
means of sanitation undertaken during the
past three or four years. But the good
work has not reached it's natural or logical
conclusion. There is still work to do to
improve and safeguard the public health,
and the north branch of the Winooski,
flowing through the heart of the village,
presents an inviting field for the employ
ment of further means of publication. But
even there there is hardly occasion for some
of the scarey and exaggerated statements
that have recently appeared in print in re-
lation to this water way. In its best es-
tate, it is hardly, within the village pre-
cincts, the stream to whose waters "melo-
dious birds sing madrigals," nor in its worst
condition is it the Sty gian stream it has
been painted. Still, the branch presents
certain conditions that imperatively de-
mand consideration and treatment with
view to preserving and improving the
| health of the village.
From any stream at low water an un-
pleasant exhalation is apt to arise partic-
ularly at nightfall, when the dew is de-
scending. The moisture in the air affords
a vehicle for the transportation OF smells.
| M Ol various klHuS along
rivers course will give variety and pun
| gency to the etfluvia. Turn the sewage
| of large community into the stream and
the bouquet of odors becomes not exactly
such as the poets say floats on the breezes
in the realms of "Araby the blest." The lat
ter is very much the condition of the branch
at low water i'll summer time.
An examination of the Winooski and its
north branch discloses certain physical
changes that would hardly be credited and
that account in part for the unwholesome
condition of the latter stream II is fact
that the bed Of the Winooski, at and below
the mouth of the north branch, is some two
and one-haf feet lower than IL was about
twenty years ago. The lower stones in the
abutments of the Wells River railway
bridge over the branch, which at the time
of building were submerged at low wa
| ter, are now some two feet above the
water The logs under the river wall of the
Ellis building, ~ hich at that time were COW
cred, are now high and dry above the wa
ter. If the bed of the Wnooski was as high
as it was at the period named. the bed of
the branch would be covered with water
well up to the Union House bridge. The
volume OF water flowing in the branch is
undoubtedly smaller than it was twenty
years ago. These physical changes have
left large areas OF tine bed Of the stream
exposed, and the water zig-zags its way
along the lowest levels TO the Winooski.
Some OF the sewers debouch into the chan
mel of the stream at points unwashed by
its waters, and theseI exposed areas, with
| their accumulations OF filth, lie baking and
fostering in the summer sun.
Right here is the need of effective means
of sanitation. What is proposed? Two
schemes, either one of which would greatly
mitigate the evil, and both together would
remove il entirely. First, take the sewage
out of the river, either by the plan proposed
by the expert recently employed by the
village and detailed in the last annual re-
port of the corporation, or, by carrying a
sewer down on either bank of the stream,
just below its bed, to the Winooski-a plan
that has much to recommend it in place of
the experts proposition, and one that is
strongly supported by citizens Of good judg
ment who have studied the subject.
The second is hardly subordinate in the
| scale of importance: Flow the bed of the
stream from bank TO bank-as it used to be
to point above the entrance of the pub
lie sewers. IL is quite possible that this ex-
pedient alone might effect reformation of
the malodorous branch, and IL has the adj
vantage of simplicity and relative cheap
ness For this purpose, either single dam
of wood or stone, some four feet in height,
would be built near the mouth of the
branch, which, IL is believed, would flow
the bed OF the stream well up toward the
academy bridge; or series OF smaller dams
might be made more effectively to accom-
! plish the same end-one to be placed a short
distance below State street bridge, another
about midway between the State street and
the Union House bridges, and third at a
point some distance above the latter bridge.
! These dams would be built with appliances
for periodically drawing off the water from
the flowed areas and cleansing them. By
this means the parts of the river bed that
are now exposed to fermentation and the
production of noxious odors and deadly
miasmas would be kept wholesome by sub
mergence Water in abundance is flowing
| in the stream to preserve the flooded areas
from stagnation, and the opportunities pre-
sented by showers and high waters for effec-
| lively cleaning the basins of their accumu-