The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-03

the sewerage is purified at the set 1 tling aSins, it is pumped out about | 200 feet from the shore in 36 feet depth of water. Twenty-Five men are employed at the precipitation plant and fourteen men at the pumping sta | ton in the winter time and many ad- ditional men during the summer sea son.
 For every 1OO,Ooo,oOO gallons of sewerage there remains 4,089 gallons | age discharge at the station is 1S,- 000,000 gallons. On Sundays 8,0OO,- 900 gallons of discharge. This large
 quantity of sewerage flows every day | through the pipes without the use of | flushing tanks.
 It is a we'll known fact that fish are very sensitive and will not swim in foul water when they can find pure water to live in, otherwise if they should be pounded or confined in foul water, they would die very quickly This was proved in the Providence River. No fish were caught above certain point of the river during the fouling of the river by immense vol | umes of sewerage being deposited | therein from Worcester via the Black stone River besides their own sewer age. Since the larger part of the sewerage of Providence has been pu- r1fied, the fish are caught again far ther up the river. When the time comes that fish cannot live in the waters bordering our fifteen miles of | water front, we will then know that the waters are polluted.
 If there is only 4,089 gallons of sludge to O,00O,O00 gallons of sew craze, it means for each 24, ,445 gal Ions of sewerage, there is one gallon of sludge, making a daily average Of 80 gallons of sewerage per person. It has been ascertained that this sludge
 Is so much diluted by being water borne for such long distances the re- fuse cannot be made available for
 fertilizing purposes to any great ex- tent. Water surface sewers are mostly used on low levels to avoid backing up at high tide in the sani- tary sewers.
 Pumping Station Costly. Where storm water sewers are used, they estimate to connect one-tenth Of the catch basins to sanitary sewers
 for flushing purposes. Engineer Clapp says there is no reason to talk about pollution of large bodies of water
 until. the fish themselves die. When
 that time comes, it is time enough to take action. The main intercepting sewer to pumping station cost $3,500,-
 900. The precipitation plant S325,- 900. The pumping station S250, 900. If New Haven and Hartford are us- ing the combined sewer systems with excellent results, and Worcester, Prov
 idence and Boston have used their
 combined system under ten times worse conditions than ours up to 12O,0OO, 15O,O0O and 5OO,OOO popula-
 tion, with no large bodies of water
 Bridgeport with it's 100000 inhab bi- tants, and if any of these cities had
 one half our water front to-day, I doubt very much if they would ever
 have thought of making any change. Certainly Boston made no change un-
 til it had 500.O00 population and if it had not been for the Charles River district, there would not have been any material change in the use of the combined system up to the present time.
 If it costs Worcester $49,000 an- nually to run one pumping station on the most economical basis, it certain ly would cost Bridgeport about $1OO,- 900 to run their two main pumping stations and about $40,00O to S50,00O tions at Ash Creek and Berkshire Mills, besides the enormous cost of
 water and extra labor and repairs for flushing purposes, and cleaning of ed by reputa ble sewer contractors,
 the Herring system cannot be built pr constructed anywhere near the esti-
 mates he has made. By adding these amounts together, it would cer- tainly cost the taxpayers of Bridge J
 this system without taking into con-
 sideration the yearly payments on the
 bonds and interest charges Fix
 Mayor Henry Lee informed me that
 he had appeared before the Manufac- turers' Club and the Board of Trade and met with his sewer committee, when this system was first brought before the notice of the Council,
 strongly opposing the same, stating in his judgment at that time that the system might answer for city of 500, 900 inhabitants but the prOposi- tion would mean bankruptcy for a city the size of Bridgeport.
 There may be Herring systems used
 in some sections of the New England
 States but I have not heard of them,
 still the health statistics of the New
 England States is one to be proud of.
 Very Respectfully Yours,
 ZALMON GOODSELL.
 The Pastors ASSO does not object