The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-17
By 1885 Present Source Will Be Inadequate To
 Supply City

VIII Be inadequate 10
 Supply City
 NEW YORK, Aug. 16.-New York city, like the Ancient Mariner, one of these days may find itself with water all about, but not enough to drink. The engineers who planned and six months ago finished the Shandaken tunnel, thereby doubling the city's daily water supply, find that they scarcely have time to roll down their sleeves and. ad- Sufire their engineering feat before they must start to develop another new and equally important water supply sys- tenn for the city.
 The population here is increasing at such definitely rapid rate that by 1885 the present municipal water supply will no longer be sufficient for New York's millions to drink cook with, bathe in and fight fire. Ten years must be allowed for the construction of a water supply system that will meet this situation. So, adding and sub tracting, that brings us right back to the present. Already engineers are planning how best to take care of the New York of ten years hence which is making her need for water relentless demand of today.
 The sea water all about New York, it would seem, might be used in some way to spare the drain on the water supply by New York's future millions. Thaddeus Merriman, chief engineer of the board of water supply of the city of New York, explains that we cannot de- pend on the Atlantic ocean for any more help in solving our water prob lem than she affords us today.
 Salt Water Wont Do
 "We can't offer the people of New York salt water to bathe in because a certain part, of it is going to get into their months and salt waterdl pleasant to taste and isn't healthful to drink. We must have fresh water in our home for all purposes.
 Some water is used to flush the streets, but we can't substitute ocean water because of the deposit of salt that would be left on the street after the water had evaporated. This salt would blow about in peoples eyes, noses, and mouths, and we'd have an epidemic of sickness caused by it. So we must wash our streets with clean water.
 Buildings will grow taller in the next ten years, suppose, to house the millions that will come to New York This means that we must have more water for fire fighting. We could use sea water, and are equipped to use it in some places today, but we find that salt water ruins hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of valuable merchan- disc in warehouses which must get a certain amount of drehching if there is a fire in that locality. This merchan- disc would be permanently damaged if we usad salt water, but probably is only temporarily injured when we use fresh water, so it is to the interest of the merchants and ultimately the con- sumers for us to use fresh water, when ever possible, for fighting fires"
 Comes From Mountains
 When grandfather was a lad, get ting drink of water was simple enough. He went out in the back yard to the family well or walked down the road to the neighborhood spring. Today, if grandfather were to set out in person to go to the source of his drinking water, he'd be faced with a 1OO-mile trip, air line. The drinking water that comes to many of us today has made a three-day gravity trip to us. When we turn on the tap in the kitchen, many of us are getting noun tain water that has come from the Catskills. We, are drinking, here in New York every day, identically the same quality of water that our friends vacationing in the haunts of Rip Van Wrinkle are rhapsodizing about.
 Ali of us who are cOnnoisseurs by nature ten years from now will prob ably have been driven by prohibition to the judging of merits of drinking water. Then New York is going to demand that her new water system, as well as providing quantity, furnish water of quality as excellent as her accustomed drinking water. Where to turn for this future supply, engineers are considering today.
 New York can turn to several di- rections for her new water supply. She can go upstate, farther into the Cats kill country. Here she could develop a system more extensive but otherwise parallel in construction to the present Catskiu system. Our drinking water would come to us in big concrete tun- mel, resembling in shape and size our subway tunnels. Gravity Would bring At tO hhS lAly 0H BIAN1ll DFl0SS IDE water down through the Catskill sys- tenn water tunnels. But if we do go upstate in New York for our new water supply, we must go several hun dred miles, for all the mountain streams within five hundred square miles of the Gilboa Dam are draining into the Schoharie reservoir. Going several hundred miles farther for our water and building complete new system is not an impossible solution of our water problem, but it is, financially, an ex- pensive solution.
 New Jersey's Water Troubles
 New Jersey is having water troubles of her own and cannot be counted on to do missionary work in supplying New York with water. Many of the towns and smaller cities in New Jersey have been forced to draw sparingly on their