New-York tribune., 1901-03-14
THE WASTE or WATER.

The city of New-YOrk, or. more particularly,
| the Borough of Manhattan, is wasting water At
a prodi@al and ScandalOuS rate. OF that we be
| lieve there cannot be a shadow of reasonable
doubt. We do not mean merely that water is
wasted by careless too free use. That is an
evil, hut minor one. The great evil is the
| waste of water through lcaky mains into sewers
and underground rivers. Almost every large
eXca walton made nowadays for building pur-
poses uncoverS such leak. 1t is we'll within
bounds of reason and judgment to reckon that
more than one half of the water which comes
down to this island through the aqueductS never
gets into service pipes at all, hut flows directly
from Ieaky mains into the sewers and Subter-
rancan streams. That being the case. what
folly it would be to try to increase the supply
by pouring more water into the aqucducts and
distributing reservoirs from Croton Ramapo
or elsewhere That would merely increase the
leakage. You cannot fill sieve by pouring in
ten gallons any more than by pouring in one.
The apparent use of water in Manhattan is
about 10 gallons n day for each inhahi-
tant. Competent engineers after panStaking
investigation, are convinced that Of this only
forty gallons are actually used. Probably ten
gallons more represent what may be termed un-
avoidahlc waste; for, of course. certain
margin of waste is practically unavoidable
There are left Sixty-five gallons to each inhabi-
tant. or considerably more than half the total
supply. To represent needless, WantOn and. in
the circumstances. criminal waste. The vast
bulk of this waste is through lcaky mains and
defective pipes and faucets, all of which might
he put into perfect order at cost to the city
merely trifinS compared with the sum which
the Tammany officials wanted to pay to their
Ramapo friends for pouring water into eaky
with full confidence that the present Croton
and Bronx supply is sufficient, without the
slightest stintinG or restriction of use. for
community more than twice the size of these
two borou-h~; all thar is necessary being the
stoppacc of needless waste.
II may he instructive and Confrmatory of
these views 10 note the examples of some other
cities. In London the daily consumption of
water for domestic purposes in summer i
about thirty gallons a head But il Is rccloned
that from 30 to - per cent OF that is ncodleSSly
wasted through defective mains and plumbing.
In Liverpool and Manchester the consumption
j. not more than twenty gallons head, and in
Birmingham il is only fourteen gallons These
figures, amazingly low in comparison with
those of NoW-York, do not indicate stntin@ in
the OF water. bUt rather precautions against
needless waste. I'll" condUtS and mains are
kept Wat"rt@ht, ana the plumbing j. ri-idly
supervised 10y competent municipal authorities.
IN every one Of those cities save London and
soon II viii he no execution every inch of
piping and every faucet or other fixture in q
house must p" examined. tested and stamped
hy official engineers. In some places. such ~
Nan, hester it is required that al taps Shall hr
of the sclf-rlosing kind. to guard against their
being nc@lic"ntly left open. II is hy such meth
DDS a these that great English cities have
checked needless vast" Of water. and while
permitting thu utmost freedom Of actual use
have hushandcd their resources To n degree of
which Ncw-lork has not Yet dreamed They
stop waste in order to permit and to encourage
lcEitimat" use. In This unhappy city Legitimate
use is Stintcd and crcumscrbcd while needles,
waste goes on unchecked.