The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-11-11
WHY WATER TASTES BAD.
The Spring Valley Company Be-
lieves It Simply Needs
Aeration.
Mayor Sutro Says the Board of Health
Will Investigate the Quality
of the Supply.

The water question will at once be taken
up by the Board of Health. Mayor Sutro
is positive of this and says he will see that
it is thoroughly looked into. He remarked
yesterday:
There are two things that the people are en-
titled to, and those are fresh air and pure
water. l am satisfied that the water the peo-
pie of this City use for drinking is not pure. 1t
cannot be pure when the source from which it
comes is surrounded by human habitations.
Where there are such habitations, as is the case
in San Mateo County, the water becomes con-
taminated, and Notwithstanding the TACT that
1t is strained before it reaches the consumers it
is not pure. That is it is freed from animal
matter that may exist, but it is not freed from
faint that may exist before it goes through the
process of filtration.
Take Laguna Honda, for instance. 1t has
not been cleaned for ten years. The officers of
the Spring Valley Water Company admitted
that to me- Surely that water cannot be pure.
The reservoir there, am informed, is cracked,
and the company dare not drain off the water
for fear of a collapse, but think that source
of supply is to be abandoned shortly.
Proper tests of the water furnished the citi-
zens should be made. There should be a
chemical analysis and an analysis for bacteria,
so that the people may know just exactly
what they are being served with
Hermann Schussler, the chief engineer
of the Spring Valley Water Company, says
the only thing the water complained of
needs is aeration-to be shaken up and
| tumbled about in the air, and that he has
a device for doing this.
''No water" said he, ''is supplied from
cit her Lake MERGED or Lobos Creek. The
latter we condemned two years ago, and
we have used no water from MERGED since
! Jan uary. We are engaged upon an extern
slve system OF drainage for carving off the
surface water from around the lake into
the ocean," Mr.. Schussler continued:
Mayor sutro is wrong in what he says about
our water. No cattle at all are pastured on our
watershed OF about 10000 acres at the San
AndreaS and Pilarcitos reservoirs. We have re-
fused an offer of $12,0O annual rental for the
use of 1t as pasture.
There. are four different sources of supply
The higher parts of the Western Addition get
water partly from the Pilarcitos reservoir in
San Mateo County and partly from the Black
Point and Ocean View pumping stations, which
furnish respectively Crystal Springs and San
Andreas water.
The district west of Valencia street and north
OF Market street, and including Kearnv and
Market streets, and strip along the north side
OF Market street, and then'out Hayes Valley is
supplied with San Andreas water. This district
is the one from which the most complaints
come. The lowest parts of the City, Tat is
east OF Valencia street, south OF Market street
and east OF Kearny street, and including North
Beach as far as Van Ness avenue, are supplied
from Crystal Springs and Alameda Creek.
We are now constructing an aerating appa-
ratus for the San Andreas water like what have
put in at the Clarendon Heights reservoir
have very thorough process of fltering, but
the water, as say, needs shaking up in the air
to take away the taste complained of. IL con-
tains 1000. 100000 gallons. The winds this
summer have been rather light like they were
in 1878, and have not sufficiently agitated the
water.
The aerating apparatus I putting in at
the College Hill reservoir will give this water
falling and tumbling about over and through
a series of splashboards for fourteen or fifteen
feet In the air. bringing it all into contact
with the atmosphere. We have contracted for
half mile of 30-inch pipe along Chenery and
some other streets just for this purpose,
Frank Smith g. Co. of San Leandro having the
contract.
We have submitted some samples of San
Andreas water to Professor Hilgard of the
State University for analysis. He telegraphed
me to-day that he had made the ANALYSIS and
that the .result was favorable" All the
water needs after our process of filtration is
agitation in the air, and as fast as we can we
are getting this DONE
Mr.. Schussler added that his company
did not, as Mayor Sutro said, suppress
complaints, but on the contrary keep
books in blank for the purpose OF record
ing complaints.