The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1915-07-08
THE POWER PLANT QUESTION


question Of moving the power house,
which is the foremost question before
Brookings just now:
Some reasons why the City Council
decided not to move the power house:
That improvement and enlargement
of the city lighting and heating plant
question about that. The question
to be settled by the council was this:
Shall these improvements be made
where the plant now stands, on ground
b~elonSing to the city, purchased for
the purpose of a location of the munic-
ipal plant, or shall a new site be Sc
lected and purchased by the city for
the purpose. The question of removal
involved, chiefly, four points, namely:
smoke nuisance, fuel handling and in
creased cost OF operation, general
effect Of appearance of buildings of
this nature on the surrounding por-
tions of the city and cost of removal.
Taking up the last point first: The
change of location meant the purchase
of a new site and from past exper-
fence the council knew this would not
come as a gift by any means, and
while it may be said the old site could
be sold for as much as a new one
would cost the idea Is not to sell it but
to retain it as a possible location for a
new school building or other public
purpose, so that the removal of the
plant would mean at the present time
would be necessary if the city owned
no site at all. Then the cost of ex-
tending the heating mains is an
amount depending on the distance the
plant is moved from its present loca-
ton. The removal a distance of two
blocks means the laying of approx
mately one thousand feet of ten-inch
heat mains with the necessary return
pipe, men holes. pipe covering, etc,
and would cost something like eight
dollars per running foot. Additional
new generating equipment would have
to be placed in a new building only a
part of which would be necessary at
present if the building remains where
it is.
With the plant located on or near
the right of way coal can be handled
more cheaply than at the present To-
cation but the heat loss due to radia-
ton from pipes, if the distance the
mains are extended is a thousand feet,
will equal the saving in coal handling.
Extra power would also be necessary
to operate the pumps on the heating
system.
The smoke nuisance while it is real
will not be lessened to any extent by
the moving of the plant a block or two,
the trouble will simply shift with the
plant location; about the same num-
Der of people will be affected, it is
only a question Of who is entitled to
the smoke. There are two solutions
of the smoke question in this and
most other cities. One is the locating
of the plant outside the city limits
which is out Of the question in the
present case, the other by the use Of
taller chimneys which produce better
lraf 81 o~I M rr,,n thn nyna1yn hynbav
and when used in connection with
automatic stocking devices and the
better grades of coal reduces the
amount Of smoke produced to a mini
mum. Some of these things are to be
lone whether the plant remains in its
present location or not
AS to whether the location of a
power plant in a particular part Of a
city mars that part of the city by its
presence depends to a considerable
extent on the building and it's sur
%rOundings and also on the person. The
location of the pumping station at the
entrance to Lincoln Park, Chicago,
never occurred to us as having any de-
facing effect on the appearance of that
portion Of the park any more than
does the pumping station in Madison,
Wis, located in one of the finest resi-
dence parts of the city, in this case
certainly the surrounding district in
no way suffers from the presence of
the pumping station. However If
Brookings grows as we all hope it will
the block on which the power
house now stands is too ear the bus
mess section and too near the rail
road to be used as a park. The block
on which the Baptist and Presbyter-
ian churches stand would be much
better suited to the purpose and could
be acquired by the city as cheaply.
The closing of the street between the
present school buildings would make
the grounds continuous. A large
amount of money would be necessary
to acquire the remainder Of the block