The Mena weekly star., 1911-08-31

roads, and, lest tlt HtiShDOho aUi get strung a line of electric lights around it's water tower. The light was easily twenty miles distant.
 Alfalfa and Water Plant.
 The story of the Sabetha water plant reads like propaganda Tor municipal ownership. SaDetha prospected for water, and found It i20 feet under an alfalfa field near town. An acre of this patch was purchased and four wells sunk, one in each corner. A little cement house incloses each pump, simple affair run by a 5-horsepower motor. The water is pumped to two-hun- dred thousand gallon reservoir and a seventy thousand gallon tank, ele- vated i25 feet, supplies the gravity system. From midnight until morning when the least water IS used the pumps are worked. Nee job. that. for the engineer, walking around the alfalfa field watching those pumps amout 3 a. m., you lm- agine. Spare your sympathy. The engineer on the last shift at the electric light plant pushes a button at midnight and the pumps begin. Every day one of the engineers in- spects the pumps and oils them less than an hours labor. The water plant buys it's power from the town power plant at cost; this makes the cost of pumping three and one-half cents a thousand gall Ions. A profit of twenty-six and a half cents for the water plant. Cleanliness makes for economy in Sabetha; the more water you use the less it costs you per gallon. All lusers are on meters. The minimum rate is low and the plant is fast lpaying for itself. But Sabetha, be- | ing in Kansas, couldn't reconcile itself to despoiling an alfalfa field. Between the four pumping houses the alfalfa still flourishes. Several crops have been cut and sold; the field brings more than S60, the in- terest on the original cost of the patch--$i ,000.
 A sewerage system followed the water installation. The town has paid out $26,500 and the residents l$i7,000 for the system. The town has seven miles of sewers and sewer Iaterals. The most approved method septic tanks are used for l the disposal of the towns waste.
 And Steam Heat for All.
 l The clouds of steam that puff out from engine rooms have done their work in making the big wheels go around, but in this day of scientific
 management the exhaust steam is wasted if allowed to condense again. Sabetha's engineer, MT. Johnson, had been bothered some time by this steam. A laundry was organized and built near the light lplant. It uses some of the exhaust steam and washes the clothes cleaner, having no coal burning en- zines in the building. Tom Pace wanted some of this clean steam so he built an ice plant near. But there was still steam left and Mir. Johnson told the council that if Ipiped to the stores it would heat the business houses in winter. The lcouncil pondered some time, then decided to try it. Bids were adver- tised for to install such system. IThe lowest bid was $9,500. That Twas prohibitive. MT. Johnson said lit could be done for less. June Hound the Sabetha High school boys with summer idleness and the usual youth-yearning to making a fortune before fall. The boys were put to ditch digging and pipe lay ling. Sabetha has It's heating sys- Item, installed at a cost of Si,000. lTwenty-one store buildings have been connected with the feed line. Twelve more will be connected soon, and before cold weather twenty five houses will be ready to receive the municipal steam.
 The working of the plant is sim Iple. An 8-inch pipe goes from the electric light plant to distribu- tion center, where it branches off into two 6-inch pipes. The pipes are laid underground in this man. ner: On the bottom of the trench is tile covered with four inches of concrete. The pipe is laid in a wooden box covered with four inches of shavings. The box is then covered with four inches of con- crete. There are expansion joints and water taps every two hundred feet. A pipe to carry the steam back to the plant is laid in the box with the supply line. Houses con- meeting with the main line pay for the fixtures and the cost of piping to the curb. The town buys the fixtures and sells them wholesale to the consumer, plus i5 per cent for the cost of installation.
 One pound of pressure and a f0- inch vaccum will operate the svs- tenn. There is a reducing valve al the light plant where extra steam can be introduced in case of acct dent to the boilers. The exhaust steam will supply fifteen thousand square feet of radiation, enough to iiSat tic DuiiuiIIg connected with the system. The consumer will pay twenty-cents square foot of radiator surface each year. The steam from the city plant will cost nm zo per cent less than coal. The n h 4.I l.