The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-02-06

Talk of Lime Kiln Bottom for the Great
Gunpowder Lake.-Among the many sug
gestions made as to the future water supply for
the city is the maintaining of large storage
reservoir Just south of the present Loeb Raven
supply says the Baltimore Sun.
Persons who have lived at Loeb Raven for
many years and have watched from time to
time the conditions existing with the present
supply speak in the highest terms of the nat
ural basin that lies to the south of the present
dam and off the stream.
Some of them say that any dam, however
high, if built in the stream of the Gunpowder
river will simply be money thrown away. 1t
is true that it would back up vast body of
water. but this would, they say, only help to
make conditions more complicated.
For years and years they have watched the
water during freshets pour over the present
dam from seven to eight feet high and the
width of the big dam. Muddy water, carrying
with it trees, lumber, wood, small houses and
many times farming machinery, has flowed
over the dam, and each freshet has left deposit
ted within in the dam tons of mud.
The city has maintained for years heavy
machinery within the dam designed to clean it
by pumping over the dam the mud that col
lects during freshets. 1t has been related that
on one occasion the mud poured into the dam
so fast that big scow carrying the apparatus
for dredging started from the dam up stream
and by the time it got halfway up so much
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the scow was surrounded and its crew had to
dig both ways to release it.
1t is argued by some that the same thing will
happen in any dam built in the stream of the
Gunpowder and the larger the dam the more
complicated will be the conditions. For, said
one prominent farmer, with the present dam
much of the mud and debris is carried over the
dam in a freshet but with water backed up to
many times the size of the present stream the
current will have lost its force in midstream
and much of the mud will settle to the bottom
within the dam.
What is known as Lime Kiln Bottom is said
to form natural basin in which the city could
build large storage lake. There are high
banks Oh either side and only narrow chan
mel would have to be damned. No business
enterprise would have to be purchased and, it
is said, the farm land could be acquired at rea-
sonable prices, making the cost to the city far
less than the Warren proposition.
This vast space of valley skirts the Loeb
Raven road and is off the stream of the Gun
powder. Running beneath it is the conduit
that carries the water from the present Loeb
Raven to Lake Montebello. and as it would
only be short distance under the bottom OF
the lake it would be easy to tap it.
The plan proposed is to keep the lake filled
with water to be used when the river water is
not fit for use, but to draw from the present
dam under favorable conditions. 1t is estima-
ted that the cost of the lake would be 30 small
that what was left ofthe So. 900, 900 would more
than pay for what pumping might be necessary
on the city end, and this pumping would cost
less than it would cost to keep the proposed
dam clear of mud.