The Hawaiian gazette., 1906-05-11
PURE WATER IS
VITAL TO
CITY
CONTINUED from Page u

the Nuuanu site being chosen after two
years OF exhaustive search and study.
a plant at this point would supply 95
per cent of the residences in the city,
all but those on the top of Makiki and
the highest parts of Roundtop. and for
these a separate system could be later
installed. The filter plant must be be-
low the storage reservoir and below the
electric light plant. There would be no
advantage in a filter II the water was
returned into a dirty reservoir, and be-
low the filter must be a protected re-
servoir to catch the night flow. The
filter itself consists of only two small
, tanks, one to be used while the other
was being cleaned and to have these
large enough for storage purposes
would make the price prohibitive. To
place the filter further up Nuuanu
would be to abandon the electric light
plant, and that was not to be con-
sidered. He hoped that the club would
protest as a body against the sale Of
the lot and send a committee to make
their protest to the powers that be.
DIR. C. B. WOOD.
Dr. Wood compared the city OF Ho-
nolulu to Hongkong, which it resem-
bled in location. In Hongkong a filter
system was in use on about the same
kind of a water proposition as 1t han
died here. Five filter beds We're i'm use
there and the water passed from these
into a cement storage tank. For Ho-
nolulu this tank need not be any larger
than the one now at the head of Ala
pai street.
There was a misapprehension among
Honolulans as to the purity Of water
filtered through sand, many thinking
that the operation was a purely me-
chanical one and removing only IL
coarser impurities, leaving the neces E
sity of boiling to kill the bacteria. He
had noticed this impression prevailed
in the department of Public Works.
and he wished to contradict ii. The
natural sand filter removes over 80 per
cent of all bacteria, not because these
cannot pass through the interstices be-
tween the grains of sand, but because
around each grain an albuminous trap
is set by nature and the bacteria gath
cred In from the passing water. There
is no dispute about this. The truth of
it has been settled by numerous tests
and water rank with sewage and
germ infested can be made absolutely
harmless and as pure as any water can
be by this sand iteration. After filter
ing there rs no necessity for boiling.
AS to the advisabiity of the proposed
Nuuanu site, the Doctor was not pre-
pared to give an opinion. That was a
matter for the engineers to decide.
u, Il
Hongkong, objection raised regarding
the supplying of the higher points of
the city from the filtered water reser-
voir could be overcome here as there,
where from a filter at 400 feet the
water was cheaply sent to the highest
points by an hydraulic ram.
: There was some expense connected
i with the operation of such a
system in the cleaning of the filter
The top sand had to be washed at in
tervals, but this had not proved diff
ficult nor an expensive process. Rudolf
Herring, the expert who had studied the
matter here, had recommended sand fill
ters and had estimated the cost of in
atalling them and maintaining them in
operation.
So far as the necessity of filtering
the water from Nuuanu valley, the
physicians of the city had only one
opinion.
IF it is not done deliberately now,
it will some day be done in a hurry
after an epidemic of typhoid breaks
out" said the speaker. 'One patient
with typhoid could infect and poison
the whole town, and the injecting of
the Nuuanu reservoir system with the
bacteria of typhoid or other disease Is
among the probabilities, when every
man who drinks Nuuanu water will be
subject to the infection. The greatest
wonder to me is that there has not yet
been a serious spidemlc OF typhoid. BY
t ffltering these waters there cannot be
an epidemic. ] know this may sound
like strong statement, but 1t is never
theless a fact"
! Answering a question from the chair
! DR.. Wood said that the bacteria OF
cholera and of every other infectious
disease would be eliminated i'm the fill
ter.
/ HERING'S PLAN.
| Mr. Thurston reminded these present
of the serious epidemic of typhoid
some years ago, In which there had
been many deaths and which at the
time had made a pretty blue town out
of Honolulu. This may occur again al
any time. The necessity for the filtra-
ton plant was most urgent and II the
club would begin n propaganda to bring
the matter up In the legislature and
have an appropriation set aside for II
II could not be doing any better work
J for the city,
+. s. Dodge spoke briefly on the
plans of Mr., Herring. which had nclud'
ed both natural and mechanical filters
, recommending the former, The speak
er thought that "A strong protest shoul,
so In against the proposed sale of th'
lot, He was strongly In favor of Tn
government retaining the land
As a member of the committee al
Parks In the civic Federation Leagu,
he had been to Mr.. Holloway's oric
regarding the hller matter and IA,
been told, though not by Mr. Hollowa
himself that that department did no
believe In filtration, The water woul
purify itself in the new reservoir b