The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-07-11

Baltimore City Future Water Supply.
What Baltimore will secure for its water sup.
ply under the proposed So, 100000 loan would,
it has been estimated, have been worth to New
York at the time that city was planning its
Croton reservoir Just $3.50, 600 000 says the Bal
timore NeWs. Had the city of sky -scrapers been
able to secure within seven miles of New York
a watershed like that of the Gunpowder eX-
tending over an area of $50 square miles, in
stead of having to locate its reservoir many
miles from the city, the metropolis could have
saved millions of dollars.
The chance that New York could not have
Baltimore has for the asking. With an i'm.
pounding reservoir seven miles from the city,
Baltimore has the opportunity to provide for
twice and even three times its present popula-
ton, and the chance to take advantage of an
opportunity which it has never had the facili-
ties to enjoy of securing daily supply of 170,-
600, 900 gallons of water Such a supply was
allowed the city by an arrangement with the
county twenty-five years ago.
Few people are aware of the extensive pro-
gram which will be carried out under the
loan. 1t is popularity supposed that the cam
paign is simply for the building of an immense
reservoir. This feature, however, as pointed
out by Water Engineer Quick, is the smallest
part of the program.
Without the supply of the Gunpowder pro.
he said the Eesssyor would 6s R15
indictment and growing population along the
river, the supply for this reservoir. would d.
minish with the same speed proportionately as
has the supply of the Jones' falls she'd.
ITO secure this supply in quantity and purity
it will be necessary to purchase large tracts
along the river for considerable distance:
This purchasing of land is part of the general
program which will be inaugurated with the
passage of the loan and it will pay the city
handsomely to employ every expert means to
forest thickly the river banks, to erect at the
reservoir a laboratory for the testing of the
water and to guard against any increase OF set
Element in the neighborhood of the river.
ut has been through an inability to protect
the Jones falls reservoir that the city's supply
has of recent years been constantly threatened.
Large tracts of forests have been allowed to be
swept away. Increasing population has pol
luted the supply to great extent. The city
now stands before serious proposition, which
will admit of no disregard.
1.-THE lines of consumption and supply have
twice crossed within the memory ofthe present
generation. They crossed just eight years ago
and few people have forgotten the stress that
threatened them under the water famine Of
1900, as we'll as the harm done the city COM
mercially. In the past the lines of consump-
ton ard supply have crossed during the dry
seasons, which occur once in every eleven
years. On that basis, unless immediate steps
are taken by the passage of this loan to provide
1911 as surely as fate itself terrible water
famine. With the denudement of forests on
the Jones' falls watershed the supply from that
source has been steadily decreasing, while since
the last dry year the population has been stead
ily increasing. In two years time, unless we
act, q crisis more serious than we like to imag-
inc will cOnf front ~