The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-03
MIR. GOODSELL RIDDLES
 HERRING SEWAGE PLAN
Denounces Two Sewer System and Inquires, How Many Million Gallons of Water Must Be Paid for Annually
 to Flush Sewers that Do Not Garry Storm Water?''

Hon. Zalmon Goodsell has address ed to the Sewer Committee of the Common Council a reply to the open letter by S. E.. Vincent. also a mem Der of the Board of Apportionment and Taxation, in which MT. Goodselrs $ demonstration of the unsuitable ess to Bridgeport of the Herring plan of sewerage is continued with great force and clearness. MT. Goodsells S communication follows:
 To the Honorable Sewer Committee
 of the Common Council:
 In reply to MT. Vincent's open com munication to the press and the pub lie (althOugh l have very high re- gard for the gentleman) I feel called upon to ask questions that seem per tinent to his statements. Besides calling the attention of your Honor able Body to further arguments and reasons, in addition to my first com munication printed in the council proceedings of January 30, 1911 and my second communication printed in the council proceedings of April 24, 1911-why our present sewer system IS ample for present and future needs of our city
 Mir Vincent speaks of low land levels.
 Excepting Henry Street basin and vicinity, east of Broad street, and lranistan Avenue and vicinity west of lraniStan Avenue, where are there any other low lands bordering Bridge port which are not easily drained?
 Where along our shores is sewer age strewn that testers in the sun if it does not disease our bodies?
 In what way is our present sewer system dangerous to health?
 In what cities of the size of IO,-iI pumping sewerage a mile and a half out into deep water. been used and at what yearly cost?
 MT. Vincent speaks of conditions ex- isting in the Naugatuck River which is partially used for sewerage of towns and cities above Derby.
 Where does the comparison come in between the Naugatuck River, the bed of which in dry season is most ly exposed, and twelve to fifteen miles of water front on Long Island Sound for the sewerage of Bridgeport?
 If, as MT. Vincent says, the pump ing stations under the Herring system can be dispensed with for the pres ent, why can they not be dispensed with indefinitely?
 If MT. Hering's plan which shows by spending s450,0O0.O0 We can con- meet our future needs for years to come, how will said plan be more eff fective and economical than our pres ent system?
 MT. Herring stated that sewerage contains less than one-tenth of one per cent. of solid matter.
 How does he arrive at this per- centage under so many different sew CT conditions?
 Storm water has been taken care of during the lifetime of our present sewer systems in Bridgeport, and in nv Hn rN1o o% ent points of the city has 1t faiIeu to do it's work that could not be easily remedied?
 Would Mean Bankruptcy
 Many sinks are used for garbage cans to a certain extent, and always will be by certain percentage of householders for so much of garbage as will wash through the waste pipes
 How many places have been calllei to the attention of the Sewer Com mittee where haphazard sewers have been built?
 Are our citizens who are in the habit of catching blue fish. black fish, founders and frost fish in our harbor in the habit of throwing them away after catching them, or do they take them home and have them served to the family the same to-day as they have always done.
 It hardly seems possible that any arbitrary law giving the State Board of Health authority to change pres ent conditions of sewering into Long Island Sound, would be granted against the prescriptive rights of use by said towns and cities since their first settlement. If such power were given the State Board of Health, to disturb existing conditions in towns and cities fronting on Long Island Sound, from Greenwich on the south to New London on the east, obliging them to change their present sewer conditions, which now empty into said Long Island Sound, the enor- nous cost of such changes would mean almost a condition of bankrupt cy for the most of these centers of population.
 How long germs will live in salt water has not been definitely decided as all locations are different in their conditions. therefore the chances of pollution is infinitesimal If samples of water were secured from a quar- ter to half a mile from the shore at any given point and these samples of water were submitted to an un- biased chemical analysis and the chemist not being informed for what purposes these samples of water were to be analysed or where they came from, l doubt if such analysis would show any perceptible pollution from sewerage emptying into so large body of water as ours. Where speci- fic bad conditions are located on in- land streams in the State, there is no doubt if the State Board of Health were given power to remedy those conditions, they certainly would ac- complish good results. The practi-