The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1906-05-24
HOW THE CITY LOST
ITS WATER SUPPLY
Continued from Page Tive).


scientist is made for the general pub
lie as follows:
The greatest trouble occurred along
the backbone of the peninsula which
is of granite. Against this granite and
overlapping it Is a sandstone forma-
ton; against this sandstone formation
and overlapping 1t is the sedimentary
formation. That it is sedimentary is
evidenced by the fact that it contains
shells, wash gravel, soapstone and SER
pentine Now. the whole trouble oc-
CURED where sedimentary laps over
on sandstone There was not the
slightest difficulty between sandstone
and granite The sedimentary forma-
tion lies between the bay and the
sandstone, and evidences Of the row
are plainly visible across the entire
range of Bald Knob Hills that dwindle
to nothing, just this side of Gonna.
This sedimentary formation is new, as
nature counts the years, and is still in
process of construction. Some place
down in the foundations there was a
slight fault i'm the construction, and as
the ages have piled on the weight,
there came a time when the limit OF
tensile strength" was reached and
sedimentary settled slightly on its
! foundations Now, whether it did so of
! it's own accord or was pushed there by
sandstone, has not been fully deter
mined. Anyway, it was slip fault"
and who is frightened at anything so
simple as that? Scientists have fol-
| lowed that fault. or slip, into the ocean
|
| This fault shows to be from - to $50
feet in width, but is not nearly so bad
as it reads.
What that little slip fault" did to
! the pipe lines of the Spring Valley
| Water Company IL a caution to engi-
neers. Illuminated wrought-iron pipes
were torn apart like pasteboard and
twisted about in a snake-like position
and the Pilarcitos thrty-inch pipe line,
lying directly along the line of the
fault, is damaged beyond repair. The
pipe lines across the bay were put out
! of commission as the farther end; the
San Andreas line, across Baden marsh
was badly broken at the Baden trestle
with number Of less serious breaks
in many parts Of its length. Across
san Bruno marsh 1900 feet of the
Crystal Springs big forty-four-inch
wrought iron main was tor away
and as stated. the Pilarcitos main
was entirely gone. The Lake Honda
reservoir and Lake MERGED line were
broken, leaving the city with only
sc. 600 900 gallons in the reservoirs in
| town-two and a half days supply
under normal conditions; but a great
fire was raging and the city pipes were
leaking in dozens of places.
Don't swear at Lake MERGED water
said Herman Schussler "for it saved
the entire Western Addition. Early
on Wednesday morning l was informed
that our entire pipeline system from
our sources of supply was gone. The
entire flow of 36OOO,OOO gallons had
stopped as quickly as though the pipes
had been plugged. At that moment
l knew there was only sixty hours
supply i'm the city, and that With big
fire and our city main broken. May
be the Spring Valley boys did not work
that day. A hurried view of the sltua-
ton showed that the Lake MERGED line
might be more quickly repaired and a
force was concentrated there. We
maintain our own repair shops and by
8 o'clock on Wednesday night just six
teen hours after the break, Lake Mer-
ced was pouring 100000 gallons into
the city, and the Western Addition
was safe. Within the next sixty hours
we had repaired the break in the San
Andreas line temporarily and were
sending in 100000 gallons more by
that line to the College Hill reservoir
Every engineer knows that when ma
terial has been strained beyond its
tensile capacity it is unsafe to sud
denly repeat the strain, except gradu-
allv. That was done in the case of the
San Andreas line. Increased at the rate
of 900 gallons daily
How the pipe lines were destroyed