Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-04

water with no swell, then let us send
to San Diego and get pilot that can
Channels All 1000 Feet
THE map ISSUED by the San Pedro
board of trade to show the future outer
harbor) gives a list of eight haroors
and the width of the entrance chan
nels, none Of which is less than 1000
feet except San Pedro inner harDor.
Let us see about that. The list Is
copied directly from page Of Colonel
Hours report on the needs OF san
Francisco harbor. | say COPIED Ill
rectly, but not exactly, for the report
SAYS the width of rivers at various
European ports and somehow the
tvpesetter forgot to include Bremen
Germany, on the Weser river Whlch IS
given as 400 feet wide at the port OF
Bremen. But notice the map says
width of entrance channels WIZ
Colonel Hours report says width OF
rivers at the ports which is very dlt-
ferent from the entrances, because
and this is worth your close attehllon
all of the harbors mentioned on the
man except New York, Liverpool ana
San Pedro are located from eighteen 10
sixty-five miles up rivers; IT,.
1T is also stated on the map ma
there is $4,000 feet of bulkhead 'front.'
age. which. multiplied by Al, makes
g., 500 feet of dockage. The map says
multiplying by Al is the San Fran
cisco rule with 600foot ships. Ihal
was the rule, as Colonel Heuer says;
but now San Francisco knows petter'
and her newest WharVes according 10
Colonel Heuer himself, reduce thaI Ia-
ito to S1-3 for 600-foot ships. Even
then the width OF water in the sips
will be only 900 feet and the wharVes
14O feet. which IS away behind the
times for the economical development
OF harbors.
But the building of wharves out
from bulkhead line is not the modern
way of building harbors. The modern
way is to build slips into the land, and
these slips should be from 25O to 900
feet wide. depending on their length.
with 500 to 1000 feet of land between
them. Then you can have railroads,
sheds, permanent warehouses ana
wagon roads side by side between every
slip, and reduce handling to a mini
mum.
San Pedro's Advantages
"There is where San Pedro can have
a large advantage over San Francisco
If broad-minded common sense is used,
and I am sure it will be. The 146 acres
can be properly improved with four
slips, each 300 feet wide and from 1l5O
TO 1900 feet long, giving about l1,OOO
feet of frontage. That is about the
limit of public improvement in the
outer harbor, except along the 1000 feet
of frontage kept by San Pedro from
the Miner fill.
II have gone into this discussion of
the outer and inner harbors not to dis
parage the outer harbor or boost the
inner harbor, but to do my best TO
have both developed on common sense,
broad-minded grounds, where every
IOl1 Of ha 81
them 100 cents worth of improvements.
'Who will improve your streets-the
railroads, the Bannings or the Consol-
dated Lumber company? Not until
Rockefeller gives his wealth to the
poor-and you can guess when that
will be. But that is one of the first
things Los Angeles has promised to
do after consolidation, and she will do
1t, too. because without good roads and
increased spOrtation facilities she
would get little benefit from harbor i'm
provement
Notice what streets are to be i'm
proved-Seventh from Vermont to End
street, Fries and Canal streets from
Seventh to the water front. and 100
foot street from Canal to Banning
street.
And to those recommendations /
would add a municipal railroad down
d street from the city limits TO the
water front. This railroad would sim
ply be for the purpose of allowing the
Southern Pacific, the Pacific Electric,
the Salt Lake and the Santa Fe Of it
so desires) TO get access 10 the water
front on exactly the same terms.
What a Million Can Do
Now, as to what can be done for
million dollars. Let us first consider
the subject of dredging. For half a
million dollars a channel 300 feet wide
and 25 feet deep can be dredged from
the turning basin along the west edge
of the channel west of Mormon island
TO its upper limit. Another channel Of
the same dimensions can be dredgei
from the turning basin south of Nor
mon island up to the east edge of the
east basin. or to where it will join with
the dredging done by the Consolidated
Lumber company Then the entire ~"
basin in front Of Wilmington, includ-
ing the 500-foOt channel connecting t
with the main channel to the east
basin, could be dredged the same
depth-that is, % feet at low tide I
mention these particular channels be-
cause in the development of the east
basin that would be the logical way to
go at it,
This is assuming the cost of dredg-
ing TO be 10 cents per cubic yard. The
work done by the government dredge
III HdIuti Hltltlldl, Win Il longer aver
age pump. and in harbor where there
is a great deal Of commerce to inter-
fere, has demonstrated that this dredg-
ing can be done for 10 cents, if not by
contract then by municipal dredges.
The amount of material to be removed
would be over 5000 600 yards, which
would take one dredEe the size of the
government dredge San Pedro about
five years to complete. For an addi-
tional cost of about Sl25,0O0 these chan
nels could be deepened to 80 feet
throughout.
If we consider that half a million
dollars would be spent for dredging
these channels to % feet at low tide
the other half million dollars would be
spent in building wharves, warehouses
and roads. The places where Wharves
can be made the most quickly availa-
BILE and with the least cost is along the
channel to the west and north of Nor
mon island, fully onc-half Of which is
now partially improved by dredging
and filing down by the city of VIII
mington.
To Condemn Tide Land
1T would seem to be the part of
wisdom for the city after consolidation
to condemn that piece Of tide land
south of that being improved by the
city and east of the railroad as far as
the present turning basin. That would
give over 1000 feet of frontage and
would be directly connected with Fries,
= and E streets by the mainland, and
f,nfV, ,n1 III