The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-09-08
PUBLIC WATER SUPPLIES.
IN INTERESTING PAPER ON THEIR
INSPECTION
Read by T. H. Mckenzie, of the State
Board of Health, at the County
Health Officers Meeting Thursday
Oversight of Public Reservoirs by
County Health Officers.

T. H. Mckenzie, of the State Boart
of Health, discussed 1.-THE Inspection o
Public Water Supplies" at the meeting
Of the county health officers of New
Haven county, which was held at TIT
Connecticut building in Woodmon
Thursday afternoon. His paper was II
substance as follows:
During the last forty years the close
relation between the quality of water
used for public water supplies and the
death rate from zymotic diseases, nota-
bly, typhoid and diarrhoeal, has re-
ceived increasing attention in both Eu-
pope and America.
Water consumers are beginning to
demand pure water, although 1t may be
a costly luxury, and of late years much
progress has been made in the line OF
preventing the pollution of water sup
plies, as we'll as the knowledge of water
publication by filtration.
Several of the larger cities are setting
up a high standard by policing their
watersheds and stopping all preventa-
BILE pollution, and although none of the
public water supplies of Connecticut
are seriously polluted by sewage seve-
raj of them are so extensively polluted
with vegetable matter as to be often
sive on account of the odor and color.
An engineer in designing any new
water supply to meet the demands of
to-day could consider only three kinds
of water: First, spring or ground wa
ter, not subject to pollution and stored
in covered reservoirs; second, water
from very sparsely settled mountain
watersheds and stored in large reser-
yoirs third, filtered water.
Probably none of us would refuse the
spring or mountain waters but many
are not aware of the results of flltra-
ton, as the art of properly filtering a
polluted water Is of recent origin, par
tlcularly in this country. The condi-
tons under which water frees itself,
not only of turbidity, but of micrsscop-
ic bacteria suspended therein, are fair
Iy we'll known. and are in fact an imi-
tation of natures process Of converting
surface water into spring water.
The results at Lawrence, Mass. and
at the recently constructed works at
Albany, N. Y, have demonstrated the
fact that highly polluted water can
be freed from dangerous and poison
GUS organisms and the death rate from
typhoid and diarrhoeal diseases greatly
reduced.
The cost of filtration, however, is
considerable, amounting to from five to
seven dollars million gallons filtered,
or about fifteen hundred to two thou
sand dollars per year for town of
five thousand population, so that f1ltra-
ton is seldom resorted to where spring
and mountain water can be secured and
the purity of the supply maintained.
1t is my intention 10 speak more par
ticularly of the many ways in which
the public water supply can be con-
taminated and rendered unhealthful
and of the ways in which a public
health officer may be useful to the citi-
gems under his care by aiding the water
works authorities in discovering and
stopping all preventable pollution,
In the case of some of our New Eng
land towns. the watersheds furnishing
the supply are settled and in few
cases villages are located on the
streams. In such instances an effort
should be made to have the sewage
from the villages properly filtered be-
fore entering a stream furnishing the
water supply In the state of MasSa-
chusetts much has been accomplished
in this line, and in Connecticut the
trend of the court decision is strongly .
In the line of enforcing publication.
Aside from the grosser and we'll
known sources of pollution, there are
other sources of danger due to tempo
rary residents, such as camps of lum-
oermen, and laborers' camps, fishermen
and pleasure parties, and a frequent