The record-union., 1896-02-12
ANOTHER FI1rER1NG FOLLY.

ANOTHER FILTERING FOLLY.
AS regularly as the coming and going
of the seasons Sacramento is inflicted
with the spook of filtration of the river
water This ghost of a dead and buried
fraud seems doomed to walk and stalk
at stated times in the legislative body
of this city. The fond hope was enter
tanned that 1896 might wind its way
into the train of vanished time without
this ghostly presence disturbing the
peace of the people, but it was a vain
longing.
On Monday night the ghost walked
again. the proposition of Eomeone of
whom no one has ever before heard
was received for the construction of
some kind Of a new-fangled oontTivance
for f1ltering Of the river water prior to
its being pumped into the city pipes.
The cost of this new piece of folly is to
be $4,000, and therein resides a great
danger. Any scheme for the spending
of money outside of necessary current
expenses. betterments and repairs, is
always dangerous one in a municipal
ity where there is a legislative body
that has the power of voting the ex-
penditure.
The Board of Trustees ought to have
sent the proposer right about face in
stead of referring the proposition to a
committee. Failing to do SO, the board
confessed its ignorance of the fact that
artificial filtration of a public wafer
supply does not remove the dangerous
quality of polluted water. That simple,
well-settIed and incontrovertib1e fact
should dispose of the whole business.
If not that, then this other, namely the
people of Sacramento, do not propose
to continue much longer the use Of river
water; therefore any expenditure for
f1lterfng is not to be thought of.
The contamination of the river water
from the cesspools of the State Prison,
the drainage of up-river towns. the de-
cay of vegetable matter in the over
flows, the rotting results of animal mat
ter in the stream-these and other ele-
ments of nastiness and danger cannot
be removed by filtration Filtration
viii stop the passage of visible matter,
Of tangible substances carried, of earth
sand and similar things; it will make
water clear and sparkling, but it never
has and never can stay the passage Of
germs. The water flowing from and
through the soil of a cemetery is the
clearest, most brilliant and beautiful
water in the world. It sparkles in the
light and is clearer and more dazzling
in its apparent purity than any passed
through the best and most approved
filters known to science or experience,
but it remains the most poisonous
axd dangerous water ever charged with
the germs Of disease and death.
The thing for the Board of Trustees
to do is to knock out the newly pro-
posed altering scheme with one blow,
and to declare that it will have none of
1t. With good water all about us, be-
meath US, dashing from the living SHOWS
Of the mountains, clear, pure and whole
some, any chatter about filtering the
polluted waters of the Sacramento River
is silly. and not worthy the serious con-
temptation of any body of men.
But if for the moment it is conceded
that a filtration plant at cost of $780,
600 would give US harmless water now,
that viii be no guarantee that it will
so remain as the country settles up.
Daniel w. Mead in the Engineering
Magazine" for February, in considering
the question of the location of a pub
lie water supply, well says that the
chief trouble is failure on the part
Of city governments in locating
supplies to consider the Neurological
resources of the section. That has been
the trouble here in Sacramento AS MIR.
Mead says: 1.-THE lakes and streams
and watersheds are self-evident, as
are the ground waters of each comlnu-
nifty, and these alone are commonly in
vestigated. The deeper sources when such
exist are often unconsidered or over
looked, though they sometimes offer the
cheapest means Of securing pure and
wholesome supplies
And again he says. referring to that
natural filtration where waters pass by
natural processes through vast beds Of
sand and gravel. leaving behind them