The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-12-01

and that the gravel bed is anywhere
from 500 to any number of feet in
depth, so that filtration by gravel is
simply out of the question. The
! scheme of ditching the surplus water,
either by open ditch or conduit, to the
Jordan river, is the only practical
method Of disposing of our sewage
Captain Young was conscientious in
all he said but not willing to agree to
drink this clear, sparkling sewage
water where it became continent with
the Jordan, or before it became forever
picked and preserved by the brine of
the lake.
a More Practical Idea.
I would rather not be quoted on a
matter that 1 am not absolutely posi-
tive about therefore will not say that
the sewage, if turned into the lake,
Is going to stop the bathing or destroy
one salt industry. However, there is
common sense view we may take of
this affair the same as any other that
may come before u.s. said DR.. Daily.
TO begin with, 1 am inclined to the
bel1ef that there will never need be
much worry about the sewage. in any
state, reaching the lake, notwithStand-
ing the eastern expert opinion that it
is first-class and practical concern.
While 1t has the same fall as the
straight and the current meets an inn
pediment at almost every block all the
way through the heart of the city.
These angles of the sewer and turns
VIII naturally cause SwirlS and SddieS
that Will accumulate all the solids,
which can only be removed by digging
them out to prevent clogging; hence
the practical usefulness of the gravity
sewer, in my mind, is problematical
But to throw all this aside and adj
nit that ths flushing tank and city
creek are going to keep the great
arterial subway clear of sediment, /
could not agree with Mr.. Cohn that
the water, after strained of it's solids,
would be healthy to drink.
First, what is there going into this
sewer? The decayed offal and slime
and filth indecent to household and
commercial life is olttar of roses COM
pared with the deadly poisons that
must naturally find way into
and through the sewer Con-
template, if possible, the drain
age, fecal and liquid, that must surely
come from the closets; what the doc
tors offices, the infirmaries, the hospit-
ais, the dissecting rooms and the many
other uncomfortable sources of deadly
poisonous matter that must surely be
turned into and find an outlet from this
sewer.
''Of course it is all very we'll in the
story that is told in every household
of how quickly water will clarity and
purify itself when it flows a certain
distance over or through gravel. OF
course if a dead body comes down to
the mouth of the sewer it can bO lifted
out and buried or if carcass of an
animal comes floating along. it can be
used as fertilizer, and in the same
way can be screened all the larger
solids from the sewage, and only the
more minute particles will escape and
continue on wherever the water can
ries them, indefinitely, for it must be
true that the sewage water, made
lighter than pure water on account of
the floating substance it must carry,
will not mix and intermingle with the
dense, heavy water in the Great Salt
Lake, only in the way that the
waters will mix the fresh and soft
all right, and the substances carried
to the surface there float in everlast-
ing preservation for all time.
These solids. infinitesimal as they are
in particle, gather and grow into en-
crusted, sailed and preserved fungi
that will float and be blown all over
the lake by the shifting winds, and
finally of course. touch the shore where
they will form a reef or rim of filth
that will smell to heaven from their
salty encasements.
Il understand that it is disputed that
at the present time there is much that
the extremely Clearly could righteous
ly object to on the surface of the water
at the bathing resorts. This may be
true, and 1 suppose that it is mere
matter of taste. as it is with Mr.. COh1,
as to drinking the surplus sewage df-
ter the meat has been taken out for
fertilizer. However, to turn in any
polluted stream would not, 1 be-
lieve, add any to the betterment of
present conditions.
ed in about all its phases, there seems
to me to be a certain unreasonable rea-
sonableness and paradoXical condition
of things that both condemns and. en-
dorses the whole scheme. I don't want
to talk in riddles. but the more one
studies the situation the more perplex-
ed one becomes. 1t is too grave a
question for any man or body or men
to decide hurriedly, and the fact re-
test can any result be estimated.
IF it be true that the surplus water
must go into the lake. it certainly will
rot add anything to the purity of the
jordan stream from the point
of entry to tie confluence with
the lake, and there. 2S claimed,
the dense lake water will not do any
thing else but float all the sediment,
just as quicksilver will float anything
that is placed upon its surface. The
evershifting winds and dancing wave
lets will carry this sewer fotsam every
where and as there is always a breeze
off the lake and across the bathing
resorts inland, the natural sequence
will be that-well a fellow wont care
to take his best girl into the water
and be compelled to dodge or dive
under contra band flotillas of unmen-
tionable guises. 1 do not say that this
will be the case. but at best it is a
matter that need not surprise the
bather of the future"
4 Few Aftermaths.
Treat this matter in any way, shape.
manner or form that the most liberal
mind can, the fact remains paramount
that the liquid sewage has got to be
run into the Great Salt lake. 1t is
true that all the poisonous fluids that
could or would possibly go through the
sewer, would not injure the water to
any great extent except Just where
it enters the lake. But owing to the
it would be a putrid swamp only be-
cause of it's salt, is the one reason
above all others that all impurities
that enter it remain preserved impuri-
ties for all time. Any carcass or ami
NAL or vegetable life that the waters
of the Great Salt lake fall heir to,
are it's perpetual tenants. coffined in
easement of saline matter that num-
miles and preserves and keeps ever
fresh and in bloom all the smells that
encompass the realm of putridity.