New Britain herald., 1914-07-18
Seeking 8 Way Out.
(Hartford Times. )

Few cities in the state are facing a more perplexing problem or, wealth considered. a more expensive one, than New Britain now confronts in its sewage disposal system. It is the more exasperating because the tax payers had reason to believe that the system already established would grove adequate for the city's needs for a long series of years and, by such additions as could be made, for con- siderably longer period than present generations, at least, would require. When plant of this kind fails, it soon presents an emergency, and this appears to be the case in New Britain. The manner in which Mayor George A. Quigley called attention to this left no chance for a doubt, especially as 1t was accompanied by the opinion of sanitary engineer of national repute who could have had no other object than to state conditions as he found them. These substantiated the statement of the mayor. except that they did not presume to fix responsi- bility for the failure of the present system. On this. the mayor personally stands back of strong claim, in which he says:
 The men who had charge of the work of installing these beds cannot be too severely criticised for their gross carelessness in not studying more closely the then existing sewage problems of New Britain.
 "Thousands of dollars have been spent upon repair and maintenance or 1,nl Ia ing to bring lawsuits for the pollu- tion of the brooks and streams have been bought off at large expense, and we have now arrived at a crisis where immediate action must be taken.'
 The justice or injustice of this com- plaint may never be determined, and even if efforts were made to do so, the resulting satisfaction to the city would probably be small. In fact, the New Britain failure is only one of a great many of it's kind throughout the country, especially in cities of the size of New Britain, located inland and suddenly compelled to use other than old fashioned methods of dis posing of sewage. We hold TO brief for those who had in hand the deter mining of the present sewage disposal system for New Britain, but if justif cation were to be had in similar fail- ures in. other cities plenty of 1t could be obtained.
 Sufficient unto the day. so far as New Britain is concerned, is the re- sponsibility of so proflting from the costly error of the past as to deter mine once for all upon system that will provide at least a basis for the proper solution of this problem dur ing a very long period of time. This, apparently, Is the purpose of New Britain officials. It is reflected in their reference of the matter to g. recognized expert. Permanent solu- tion, considering the problem may in- volve the expenditure of the greater part of half million dollars, is not too much for the taxpayers to de- n.and.
 The problem is New Britain's but to som eextent other cities and the state as whole are concerned. It relates to the public health. Besides, upon the success of one city in mat ter of this kind may depend the cour- age of others to tackle similar per- rlexties Sooner or later great many of the cities of the state will be compelled to do this, and the most of them do not see their way clear.