Water supply

“ In river basins with reasonable annual amounts of precipitation but with human demands on streams that sometimes exceed the rate at which water flows down, such reservoirs are still usually the most dependable and efficient item in the present technology of water supply. And since they generally have other purposes to which proportionate shares of construction costs are assigned in individual cases—flood protection, water quality control, navigation, hydroelectric power, recreation, silt detention, etcetera—they tend often to be the most economic sources of big quantities of water. ”

“ This is particularly true where families have been accustomed to utilizing municipal water supplies which are safe and pure as to quality and unlimited in amount. In most country homes it is necessary to construct a water-supply system, which means reaching a supply of underground water, pumping [Pg 56] it to the surface and piping it to locations where it is wanted. Higher standards of living create new and increased demands for water. ”

“ There is not the slightest question in my mind but that this should be used as the source of water supply, and not only that, but that it will be used as a water supply in a very short time independently of whether this project is adopted or not. ”

“ Experience has shown that water consumption increases after the installation of sewers.
The public water supply is generally installed before the sewerage system. By collecting statistics on the rate of supply of water a fair prediction can be made of the quantity of sewage which must be cared for. The rate of water supply varies widely in different cities. It is controlled by many factors such as meters, cost and availability of water, quality of water, climate, population, etc. In American cities a rough average of consumption is 100 gallons per capita per day. ”

“ If there be no natural lake available in the district for storage and supply, or if the engineer cannot draw upon some stream of sufficient size, he must form artificial Water supply. reservoirs in suitable situations, and the conditions which must be attended to in selecting the positions of these and in constructing them are the same as those for drinking-water supply, except that the purity of the water is not a matter of moment. ”

“ The care of the water supply is among its most important functions; it must protect it from its source to the homes of the consumers, overseeing all sewers, cesspools and drainage. It must also see that the supply of ice is pure. It undertakes to care for all roads and sidewalks, and their proper lighting. It is responsible for the construction of buildings, as to safety, ventilation, plumbing and draining. ”

“ Effluents from maximum standard treatment processes, for instance, can be injected into underground strata as recharge water for aquifers—a process mentioned earlier as one alternative in the emerging package of water supply techniques—or may be spread over the surface of large areas of rural land [Pg 54a] where they serve as irrigation water and fertilizer combined, as well as soaking down into underlying aquifers. ”

“ Chapters three and four deal with the artificial and natural purification of water. These are the most important portions of the book to the engineer and taxpayer, taking up the question of water supply in its economic and commercial aspects, both as regards the general town supply and also in reference to individual household filtration. The physical forces and forms with which we have to reckon are next considered under Rain, Ice, Snow, and River and Stream Water. ”

“ Then allow for two extra people so that the occasional guest, whose knowledge of water systems begins and ends with the turning of a faucet, will not unduly deplete the supply. For example, a family of seven should have a daily water supply of from 400 to 500 gallons depending on how much entertaining is done and how extensive are the outdoor uses. This allowance will be ample for toilets, [Pg 141] baths, kitchen and laundry, as well as for moderate watering of the garden and lawn. Of course, if cars are to be washed regularly, fifty gallons should be added to the daily demand. ”

“ From the foregoing it is seen that the question of water supply has engaged the energies of man from pre-historic times. These great irrigating works are found, however, in regions of sterility, or light rainfall, from the rude irrigating canals of ancient Peru and Arizona to the marvellous accomplishments of the hydraulic engineer in India and Egypt. ”

“ Water for Domestic Uses.—The question of pure water-supply has been taken up for discussion by the London Society of Arts, and circulars have been sent out to civil engineers, sanitary officers, and other persons whose callings would appear to make them familiar with the conditions of the problem, inviting from them suggestions and plans for insuring to the whole population of England a sufficiency of pure water for domestic uses. ”

“ The minimum flow of water in the river where the dam is constructed, has been stated to be twenty-seven millions of gallons for every twenty-four hours. This would be a sufficient supply for one million of inhabitants, and should the population of the city increase to one million and a half, this supply, together with the quantity in store, will probably be sufficient during any season of drought. ”

“ The use of water on such a small scale is rarely economically practicable, as even if the water is available in the vicinity of the pumping-station, considerable work has generally to be executed at the point of supply, not only to store the water in sufficient bulk at such a level that it can be usefully employed, but also to lead it to the power-house, and then to provide for its escape after it has done its work. ”

“ The water supply is of far greater importance to the people than any other of their natural resources, for upon it depends every function of life; its development is primarily the foundation of all industrial and commercial wealth, and therefore our progress as a nation will be measured directly by the economic use we make of our water resources. ”

“ Such a deep supply must, however, be protected from the superficial supply by a water-tight wall extending to the surface of the deep supply, otherwise the water from the upper layers will simply drain into the well. ”

“ A broken and chastened man soon makes the best terms he can with one of his tormentors. If he is wise it will be with the advocate of the driven well. That solves for all time any question of water supply.
Before deciding on a source, however, consider what the daily needs will be. From long observation, it has been found that the average country place requires fifty gallons of water a day for each member of the family, servants included. ”

“ Water, for ordinary purposes, on the banks of rivers or lakes, may be regarded as of unlimited abundance; but if required for irrigation, it may even there be insufficient to supply all wants, while in places which depend for their consumption on cisterns or tanks, or on wells which are not copious, or are liable to fail, water takes its place among things the quantity of which is most strictly limited. ”

“ It has two kinds of supply—one for drinking, that of spring water, and the other for manufacturing and general use. For the latter demands, the supply is taken partly from the Neckar River, and pumped through three artificial filter beds; and partly from lakes, whose water is conducted, through cast-iron pipes 15,000 feet in length, to five filter-beds, and thence into two reservoirs, 145 feet below the lake. The reservoir, for the filtered water from the river, is three miles from the pumping station, and 180 feet elevation. Seven million gallons are used daily. ”

“ In the case of deep-seated wells, the probable yield of water must depend, primarily, upon the area of permeable strata likely to affect the supply, and upon the facilities those strata may offer for the passage of water ”

“ The former part of the volume is occupied with discussion of the laws that govern stream-flow, rainfall, evaporation, ground storage, surface storage, and surface or flood flows. Gauging flows and the method of computing them are next considered. The local water systems are then described. The latter part of the book is devoted to generalizations as to water supply, chemical analyses, public water supplies, water power, evaporation, ground storage, effects of vegetation, and stream-flow; and a list of the developed water powers and the drainage systems is given in the appendix. ”

“ In all parts of the country there are numerous farm buildings which are without a proper water-supply installation. These facts are mentioned to emphasize the importance of a good water supply for the country home, and to point out that water is unquestionably the most indispensable requirement for such structures. ”

“ The kind of water system, like the supply, is governed by geography and geology. If there happens to be a spring on a nearby hillside somewhat higher than the house, nature has provided the cheapest and simplest system. A pipe line and storage tank are all that are needed. Gravity does the rest. On the other hand, if the spring is on the same level or lower than the house, a pump must be added to the equipment to force the water into the pressure tank and out of the faucets. If the spring has a large flow and adequate drainage, a water ram is advisable. ”

“ Empirical rules have grown up assigning to each district, according to its average rainfall, a particular number of days’ supply, independently of any inflow, as the contents of the reservoir necessary to secure a given yield throughout the driest seasons. ”

“ The diagram applies to ordinary areas suitable for reservoir construction and in which the minimum flow of the stream reaches about one-fifth of a cubic foot per second per 1000 acres. Correspondingly, the straight line a a represents uniformly distributed supply, also cumulatively recorded, of the same quantity of water over the same period. But, apart from the diurnal fluctuations of consumption which may be equalized by local “service reservoirs,” uniform distribution of supply throughout twelve months is rarely what we require ”

“ Supply of Water.
This is an essential part of any large system of sanitary improvement, and one that does not present very great difficulty. The principal facts which I collect from the Report are, that the expense of transmission is inconsiderable, and consequently that we may have water from a distant source; that the plan of constant supply seems to be the best; that this constant supply, under a high pressure, could be thrown over the highest buildings in case of fire, that it could be used for baths, public fountains, and watering and cleansing streets ”

“ That in time of flood a large proportion, both of the suspended and dissolved filth, is conveyed down to the intakes, and in ordinary weather considerable portion of soluble organic matter makes its way to the pumping works, and is still present in the water distributed to the consumers. ”

“ In order that those domestic purposes, which I first enumerated, should be adequately fulfilled, the supply of water ought, practically speaking, to be without limit to any individual consumer. It is the tendency of the system of constant supply, and constitutes a distinguishing advantage of that system, that it fulfils this important condition without any increase, or perhaps rather with a diminution, of the total draught of water for a large population. ”

“ In our own day we consider 40 gallons sufficient, and many think this excessive, including the use of water in manufactures, &c. No wonder, with the facilities for drainage which the rapid Tiber afforded, and with this plentiful supply of really good water, the great city was rendered, in spite of overcrowding and an unhealthy situation as regards its neighbourhood, comparatively free from those epidemics which are so fatal in all densely-populated towns. ”

“ We are told that in a great city Water is maid of all work; has to assist our manufactures, to supply daily our saucepans and our tea-kettles; has to cleanse our clothes, our persons, and our houses; to provide baths, to wash our streets, and to flood away the daily refuse of the people, with their slaughter-houses, markets, hospitals, &c. Our dozen reservoirs in London yield a supply daily averaging thirty gallons to each head—which goes partly to make swamps, partly to waste, partly to rot, as it is used in tubs or cisterns. ”

“ Experiments by Wm. McAlpine, for Albany water-works, shows that from a water-shed of 2,600 acres, 411⁄2 per cent. of the rain-fall was carried off by the streams from May till October, inclusive, while from November till April, 77.6 per cent. was so carried off.”
In England the allowance for absorption and evaporation ranges from nine to nineteen inches per annum. In this country it is from 75 to 100 per cent. greater.
We produce from “Fanning’s Water Supply” the following table of experiments on evaporation from surfaces of shallow tanks ”

“ As the water brought by canal is not sufficient to irrigate the entire cane acreage, the government has allowed the factories to install a number of large pumping plants by which water is raised from rivers. In such cases, whenever the factories have pumped water enough for their own requirements, they are generally willing to operate the pump free of cost to supply water to the native farmer. ”

“ It seems rather incongruous that while so many evidences of real progress abound in this city, water, the prime necessity of life, should be peddled about the streets by the bucketful. Now is the time to perfect a system of drainage, and to introduce an adequate supply of good water, from easily available sources. ”