The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-28
Kay Submits Report on How to Get 10O,0OO,OO0 Gallons
 Daily By Gravity
EXTENDS FROM WARRIOR
 TO NORTH BIRMINGHAM
Engineer Considers Project Entirely Feasible and Thinks 1t Will Be Great Thing for the District.
 Legislation Necessary.

Edgar B. Kay, the engineer employed by the industrial corporations to make a systematic survey and report on the feasibility and cost of obtaining a large water supply for the Birmingham dis trict from the upper reaches of the War rior river, submitted a detailed and eX- haustlve statement yesterday afternoon to the special water committee composed of various interests, including representa- lives of the city government. According to MT. Kay the project in question is en- tirely feasible. The engineer showed that 100,0O0,0OO gallons day, or more If needed, could be drawn by gravity flow from Locust Fork and it's tributaries, dis tance of about fifty miles from Birming- ham, and that the cost of building the proposed aqueduct including all storage basins, structures and regulating works, would not exceed $1,295,00o.
 The water committee met in the council chamber in the city hall. J. c. Maben president of the oss-Sheffield Steel and Iron company, Is chairman of the com mittee but in his absence yesterday Vice Chairman w. H. Hassinger presided Members of the committee present were Mayor Ward, Alderman Walter Moore, Alderman B. H. Cooper City Engineer Julian Kendrick, City Attorney E. D. Smith and Maj. F. Y. Anderson, president of the sanitary sewer commission r. H. Crockard vice president and general man. ager of the Tennessee-R Republic company, and others were in attendance by invi- taton. MT. Rays report was listened to with close attention and was adopted.
 City Attorney Smith, who Is secretary of the water committee, said the next step necessary would be legislation pro- viding how the project might be carried out, how paid for. and how controlled.
 Mir Kay is professor of engineering at the University of Alabama, and left last night for his home in Tuscaloosa. His connection with the movement to obtain "an industrial water supply from the Warrior for the Birmingham district be- gan last summer. The heads of several furnace companies, looking to the future development of the district as a great manufacturing center united in paying for preliminary survey and report. They engaged MT. Kay, and this gentleman proceeded at once to make horseback reconnaissance. He had access to gov ernment maps and local maps, studied baromtirlc levels, and looked over the watersheds, with view of determining the possibility of a gravity flow and the probable amount of water available.
 MT Kay submitted his preliminary re- port August 15, and those assuming the cost of obtaining the data for the pro- posed enterprise were sufficiently im- pressed with the result of the engineer s reconnaissance to authorize him to or ganize a surveying corps. work out an equeduct plan in detail, ascertain the cost and report fully on the project in all it's engineering phases. MT. Kay lost no time in putting men in the field. He had q corps of twenty-five at work early in the fall and these men under his personal direction remained almost continually in the field until all the ground had been covered.
 After the committee adjourned. MT. Kay, in speaking of the water question, said the aqueduct scheme was not only practical, but that the cost of construc- ton, s1 ,295, ,000, would be small when the enormous benefits that would accrue to the district were taken into considera- tion. "A hundred millioni of gallons daily is more industrial water than the district will use for years to come, but if more should ever be needed the gravity flow could be brought up to a capacity noa oil 1nt of1 Kay. "In prosecuting my investigation 1 have studied among other things the topography of the 'catchment areas of the Cahaba, the Warrior the Coosa and the Tennessee, with reference to Birmingham and the contiguous district; have studied the rainfall within the proposed catch ment areas, evaporation and 'run-off {; have studied the Warrier's Locust Fork and tributaries, with special reference to reliability as source of water supply; have studied the quality of water from the various intakes have examined the routes over which the proposed aqueduct is to be built and alternate lines with reference to cost and maintenance; have examined proposed reservoir sites their cost, impouncag capacities, and value in regulation variations Inflow from catch ment areas; have studied the designs and materials proposed to be- used in con struction have studied possibilities of water power fin connection with additional supply, and have studied distribution of supply in the Birmingham district along the line of the Van Hoose canal and Vi- lage Creek.
 My plan proposes a canal with aque- ducts from Village creek at North Bir- mingham to Rosa. on Locust Fork, In Blount county, a distance of about fifty miles This would give the district not less than 10OGc0,O0O gallons daily at merely nominal cost to the consumer.)The entire work could be completed in a year and half. Reinforced concrete would be used in all the structures. and the aqueduct would be designed and located with view of further development. The cost of maintenance would be very small
 Tn rock excavation the base of the conduit has been calculated for width of fourteen feet, with slopes of one to six teen. The proposed aqueduct has been divided into three main divisions in order to more readily study the economic ques- tions involved. The first division extends from North Birmingham 10 a point in Blount county. with total length of aqueduct of 37 miles and 730 feet. The second division extends from Blackburn Eork in fhp Calvert Prong at point