The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1933-08-16
OUR VALLEY
By S. p. WERNER

A third cooperative need Of
the valley is an adequate, co-or-
dinated, protected, and regulated
water-supply system. There are
four systems in use at present
springs, wells, small individual or
group gravity pipelines, and
municipal pipelines. The first
three are more or less happy-go-
lucky affair, in which the per-
sonal equation determines large
ly whether the supply is ade-
ouate at all seasons and fully
safe and sanitary. In the past
they have sufficed fairly well,
since the watersheds above the
springs were tolerably free from
sources of pollution, and the
water-table for the wells not
much contaminated. But the prog
ress of clearing uplands, the in
creasing density of population,
the large increment of travel,
all contribute to imperil these
primitive sources, and point to
the day, not far distant, when
they may be no longer relied
upon. The one enemy to be
guarded against here is typhoid.
The municipal water-supply al
so has been increasingly impor-
tant. The City of Asheville has
encountered some serious prob
lens of late years, and frequent
adjustments have been expensive
and troublesome.
To envisage centralized and
co-ordinated system for the
whole valley and possibly for
points below from our source of
supply may be no dream in a
few years; it may ;oon become
a stern necessity. The total eX-
pense of unco-ordinated and
scattered units may be found to
be greater than a system origi-
mated in central reservoirs in
protected watersheds and ade-
quate for all purposes for many
years.
1t ought to be apparent that
one or more of the lakes on the
large tributaries of the French
Broad could be used as a source
of supply for a large population;
and that others of these lakes
could be brought into the supply
system as the population in
creases. One of the secondary
tributaries now supplies the town
of Brevard, with a normal of
population of three thousand,
with no limit on the quantity
used, and only flat-rate nomi-
nal charge. 1t is likely that one
of the largest tributaries, the
North Fork in Gloucester, for
example, could supply a popula-
ton of several hundred thousand.
Such a system, starting at the
head of the valley and convey
ing pure water all the way
down, for cities, towns, villages,
farms, everybody in fact, would
include part of Asheville in its
beneficient supply.
In other words our valley,
with its cove-lakes, could send
water such as Muscle Shoals
never saw, to any point in the
Tennessee valley; and that kind
of water would do more good in
the insides of the population
than in the muddy waters at Will
son dam.
With a sewer line similarly de-
signed, the greatest of the health
problems of the valley would be
permanently solved. Tannery
wastes could be carried off in
such a trunk line sewer and be
kept out of the river. This point
will be elaborated later.
The need of pure soft water
for certain types of manufacture
ing processes lends emphasis to
the desirability of planning for
clean water supply on a LARGE
Sotba from rom protected watersheds,
rather than from a dirty. swamp
IN the central axis of the French
broad. Many mills require very
high-grade water. They could
get it from the tributary lakes
advocated here, with such a
trunk line as that suggested
above, for hundreds of miles
down the greater valley; and at
less expense, in the long run
than by the unco-ordinated svs,
TENS prevailing hitherto: or nj