USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego county, California; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 36
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storage or accumulation of combustibles or explosives, which may have been overlooked by other officials. This has been of great benefit to the department, especially in the down town or mercantile district.
The cooperation of the water department in providing a better supply of water under good pressure, as well as in the improved hydrants used, is much appreciated, as well as the aid of the police department in preventing a crowd from concentrating in the vicinity of a fire and interfering with the firemen in their work. The water department has installed automatic pressure regulators, which have materially aided in getting a uniform pressure at the lower levels. Another great help in the work of the department is the provision of the pres- ent building code, requiring buildings having inflammable material in basements to install the automatic sprinkling system.
There are eight stations containing steamers and other apparatus, while the station at Twenty-fifth and F streets is equipped with an auto-chemical and hose wagon, and those at Sicard and Kearney and at Park boulevard are horse- drawn chemical wagons with hose reels. The stations at Thirtieth and Ivy, as well as the one at Goldfinch, near Washington, house auto-drawn pumping engines. The building at Twenty-fifth and D streets also will eventually contain a pumping engine, but for the time being is supplied with an auto-chemical and hose wagon. For the manning of these stations, as well as those hereafter named to be obtained from the sale of fire bonds, the city has contracted for the following: Five Seagrave combination chemical and hose wagons and four pumping engines. When received the department will have four steamers, horse- drawn, one motor-drawn, four auto pumping engines, six auto-drawn combina- tion wagons, one 85-foot aerial ladder truck, auto-drawn, as well as a number of chemical and hose wagons, horse-drawn. Out of the recent sale of bonds it is contemplated to construct a building on National avenue and another at Colum- bia and Cedar streets. Provisions have also been made for the purchase of lots for fire stations at Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and La Jolla. It is also con- templated that the latter station will be manned with a combination auto-drawn chemical and hose wagon.
The most urgent need of the city of San Diego in the way of fire protection is a fire tug to protect the shipping interests along the water front. Plans have been approved and it is hoped during the coming year to secure this service.
The department is composed of A. E. Dodson, superintendent; Louis Alm- gren, Jr., chief ; J. E. Parrish, assistant chief; J. W. Collins, battalion chief ; Captains Robert Liljegren, J. P. Endsley, Fred Coop, J. W. Lambert, Jr., and Charles Ator, and Lieutenants E. A. Richardson, H. E. Strasser, G. H. Knowles, B. F. Hasam, John A. Woods and Irving Willis and J. W. Lambert, Sr., fire marshal; five engineers, three stokers, eleven auto drivers, twenty first class firemen, fourteen second class firemen and eight call men.
It has not been the policy of the present management to replenish the ranks of call men, but to continue those who were on the rolls. The growth of the city reduces the necessity of call men, but those who have been in the department for years past are found to be a valuable aid to the department, as per the rule that two old firemen are worth three new ones.
While the department is not under civil service rules, the spirit of civil service has been practiced in the entire department. Men are not selected upon politi-
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cal pull but entirely upon their merits, and all promotions have been made upon competitive examinations. Rigid discipline is exacted and the members of the department take pride in their standing as firemen and as good citizens.
POLICE DEPARTMENT
The San Diego police department was in 1912 placed on a metropolitan basis. At the head of the department is Captain John L. Sehon, member of the city council and superintendent of police. The other officers in the department consist of the following: Chief of police, one captain of police, one captain of detectives, six sergeants, three roundsmen, seven traffic officers at crossings in congested districts, six motorcycle officers, nine mounted officers, nine detectives and forty-one foot patrolmen.
The equipment of the department consists of two 30-horse power automo- biles. six motorcycles, eleven horses, a patrol wagon, ninety-eight 38-calibre Colt revolvers, twenty Krag Jorgenson carbines, four Winchester pump guns, two Winchester 30-30 rifles, three Colt automatic 38-calibres, three two and a half inch pocket revolvers.
The bureau of identification was organized in October, 1910, in charge of Detective W. A. Gabrielson. It has grown from a few records to more than 20,000 and is growing at the rate of several hundred each month. The records come from all parts of the United States and Canada.
The bureau consists of Bertillon and the finger print systems of identifica- tion. All records of stolen articles and persons that are wanted are also kept in the bureau. The identification bureau is one of the best on the Pacific coast and has the very latest system in all its branches.
All the lost and stolen watches are kept in a card index along with their numbers and monograms, and all watches that are pawned or sold in this city are also kept in this file. It can be told in a minute if a watch was pawned, where it was pawned and who pawned it. Then a list of all watches that were stolen, in this city are sent to the cities of the Pacific coast and so a person who steals a watch has little chance of selling it to a pawnbroker. Through this system this bureau has captured one of the most daring burglars that has operated in Cali- fornia in many years. He was wanted in Oakland, Los Angeles and Long Beach. He burglarized a bank in Long Beach, stealing 10,000 pennies, and also burglarized no less than twenty houses in that city.
In the bureau records are kept of the most noted criminals, how and with whom they operate. All records are kept on cards and are filed away in a most up-to-date manner. There are more than 10,000 index cards. Some of the criminals have more than twelve names and an index card has to be made out for each name. Each index card is filed alphabetically.
The Bertillon system consists of measurements of the body and a minute description of all scars, tattooes and amputations.
The finger print system consists of the impressions of the fingers of a per- son. There never has been found two finger prints alike, and it is by far the best means of identification. The United States government has established a bureau at the United States penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. It is the largest finger print burean outside of Scotland Yards.
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Finger prints were first used by the Egyptians long before Christ and also by the Chinese. The system was used in modern times by the English in India. Sir William Galton spent years in perfecting a system of filing the prints away, and now one can find a print in a minute, no matter how many prints have been filed away.
The department has installed a police and fire signal and telephone system, at an estimated cost of $30,000. There are eighty telephone boxes placed on poles owned by the city, from which patrolmen are able to report to either the station or the fire department. There are forty flashlights placed on the different beats which notify the patrolmen on duty that he is wanted. Heretofore the department has been handicapped through the lack of telephone facilities, and has had to depend upon private telephones, which are almost impossible to reach in outlying districts during the late hours of the night. The switchboard at police headquarters is operated by the desk sergeants on duty.
WATERWORKS SYSTEM
The phenomenal growth of the city of San Diego is a matter that has been commented and written upon from time to time and the growth of the department of water in connection with the same has been identical with the general rush that is typical of San Diego.
The water system up to August 1, 1901, was owned by the San Diego Water Company and the Southern California Mountain Water Company. On April 20, 1901, the city voted to bond San Diego for $600,000 at four and a half per cent interest, to buy over the holdings of the two above named companies, the San Diego Water Company to be paid $500,000 for its properties, and the Southern California Mountain Water Company $100,000 for its share. The holdings included all the rights in Mission valley and the rights of way on all lands owned by the companies, and the pumping machinery, reservoirs and pipe lines throughout the city, buildings, horses, wagons, tools, etc. The Southern California Mountain Water Company transferred all its pipe lines within the city limits.
The distributing system then consisted of ninety-nine miles of pipes, of all kinds and sizes 1, 945 meters, 586 gates and 250 fire hydrants. The water was pumped from various classes of wells sunk in the bed of the San Diego river, and the water obtained was of a quality that was not fit for drinking purposes, even when filtered. It was heavy, turbid and brackish, being mixed partly with the brine front San Diego bay.
It was on account of the quality of this water that San Diego was kept from the growth and population to which it was justly entitled. Matters grew from bad to worse until 1906, when, on August 13th, the city entered into a contract with the Southern California Mountain Water Company to be supplied with a sufficient amount of water to meet the needs of San Diego up to and including 7,776,000 gallons per day, and it was on that day that San Diego's present growth started.
The contract with the Southern California Mountain Water Company enabled San Diego to supply water to its consumers at the rate of eight cents per one hundred cubic feet, whereas under the old regime it cost twenty cents per thousand gallons for water that was not to be compared.
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On account of the growth of San Diego the maximum quantity of 7,776,000 gallons has been surpassed at various times, thus necessitating several additions to the system of the Southern California Mountain Water Company, and if these improvements were to be made by the water company it would mean that the city would have to pay more for its water. The result was that the company agreed to sell its holdings for $4,000,000 and on August 15, 1912, the people of the city of San Diego, by a vote of five to one, agreed to buy the bulk of the system of the Southern California Mountain Water Company for $2,500,000 and lease the remainder for a period of ten years at the rate of $67,000 a year with the privilege of buying this portion at any time during the life of the lease for an additional $1,500,000.
By the above purchase San Diego has a municipally owned system that extends from mountain to meter, and on the first of the year 1912 took absolute control of all water sheds, reservoirs, conduits, creeks, pipe lines, filters and all other accessories, comprising thousands of acres of land, billions of gallons of water and a hundred miles of conduit.
In order to meet the increased demands thrown on the water department, not only on account of the rapid growth, but also due to the fact that the im- pounding system of these several reservoirs will throw an additional burden upon the department, a complete reorganization has been planned, and so sub- divided that each man will know to whom he is to answer, and should anything go wrong at any time the superintendent will know upon whom to place the responsibility.
The reorganization plans to place the department of water under the super- intendent, with an assistant who is answerable for all the different bureaus and departments. There are three divisions: The clerical division, the division of lands and the engineering division.
The clerical division takes care of the correspondence, the personnel file, and the issuing of orders and requisitions for the three different bureaus, and the division of lands makes records, reports and recommendations regarding the- miles of water sheds, the several ranches and other lands which are the prop- erty of the department of water, and plans for the preservation and develop- ment of the forest reserves. The engineering division makes estimates and costs, compiles specifications and maps, and plans future extensions, designs pipe lines, reservoirs and other accessories of the waterworks, as well as super- intends the installation of the same. The hydraulic engineer acts as assistant superintendent of the department.
In addition to the three divisions enumerated above, the department is divided into three bureaus, namely: The bureau of accountability, the bureau of distribution and the bureau of conservation.
The bureau of accounting is in charge of a chief clerk and is divided into four subdivisions, namely : Books, cash, meters and property. The subdivision of books comprises the cashier, service clerk, information clerk, assistant cashier and a checker. The subdivision of meters comprises the investigator and meter readers. The property is looked after by the statistician, inspector, shop clerk, yard-master and stock-keeper.
The bureau of distribution is subdivided into three parts, namely: Construc- tion, services and operation, and is in charge of a general foreman. The con-
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struction is looked after by the foreman of construction, who has under his immediate charge the mechanics, pipe men, cement men and the several laborers. The subdivision of services is in charge of a foreman of services, who has under his immediate supervision all pipe fitters, emergency men, wagon men and laborers necessary for his bureau. The subdivision of operation is in charge of a foreman who has under his jurisdiction the machinists, meter repairers, and shop men, blacksmiths, horse shoers, stable men, truck drivers, teamsters and the watchmen in the shops, yards and pump stations.
The bureau of conservation comprises all the pipes, reservoirs, conduits, water sheds, etc., outside of the city limits and taken over from the Southern California Mountain Water Company and is subdivided into three heads, namely : Conduits, reservoirs and pipe lines, in charge of a supervisor. The reservoirs and water sheds are divided into four parts, namely: The upper and lower Otay reservoirs, Chollas Heights reservoir and filtering plant, Morena re- servoir, and the proposed Barrett reservoir, which in turn are taken care of by the several caretakers and operators. The pipe lines leading from the reser- voirs into the city are looked after by a foreman and his pipe walkers.
Mention was made in the first part of this article of the number of fire hydrants, gates and pipes that were taken over by the city of San Diego in 1901, and it is interesting to compare the system of that day with the system in opera- tion at the present time. There are now seven hundred and seventy-six fire hydrants, nine hundred and seventy-nine gate valves, three hundred and thirty- three miles of pipe and about thirteen thousand meters.
During the year 1912 there were installed over $325,000 worth of improve- ments under bond issue, and it is proposed during the year 1913 to install over $340,000 worth of pipes, valves, reservoirs and other improvements, mentioned as follows :
There will be installed a twelve-inch pipe from University avenue north to El Cajon avenue, a twelve-inch pipe on El Cajon from Park boulevard east to the city limits, a sixteen-inch and a twenty-four-inch pipe from the corner of Fifth and Laurel to Front and Date, and west from Front and Date to Arctic and Date. There will be a twelve-inch main leading from Arctic and Juniper west to Atlantic, and south on Atlantic to Spreckels wharf, and thence east to India street; from the corner of India and G streets this twelve-inch main will lead in a southeasterly direction to the corner of Ninth and N streets, then east from Ninth and N to Sixteenth and N streets. There will be a twelve-inch pipe from the corner of Sixteenth and H streets north to one hundred feet north of A. Another twelve-inch pipe will lead from Sixteenth and L east to Thirty-second. There will be a twenty-four-inch pipe on Thirtieth and A south to Thirtieth and L and an eight-inch pipe from the corner of Twentieth and M to Twentieth and D. A $35,000 reservoir will be installed in the south central part of Balboa Park, and a $12,000 reservoir on Point Loma Heights, with covering for the vari- ous reservoirs and tank towers installed.
It is interesting to note the various stages through which the water passes from the mountains to the meters before being supplied to the citizens of the city of San Diego. At the farthest extremity of the Southern California Moun- tain Water Company's system, sixty miles from the city, is the Morena reservoir, which is fed by a water shed supplied by the Cottonwood creek, which rises
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in the Laguna mountains and flows for about eighteen miles, where it is con- served in this reservoir, having a total capacity of fifteen billion gallons at an elevation of about three thousand one hundred feet above the sea level.
From the Morena reservoir the water is let out in such quantities as may be needed, flowing in a westerly direction down through the steep and rugged incline of the Cottonwood creek to the proposed Barrett reservoir. Here it is directed by a wing dam into the Dulzura conduit. The Dulzura conduit during the rainy season is also supplied by water from the Pine creek from the north, up to a capacity of forty million gallons per day. Any amount of water beyond this quantity must, at the present time, be wasted and it flows on to the Tia Juana river into Mexico. It is for this reason that Barrett dam is needed, as it is safe to assume that there is now three-fourths of the catchment area of the Barrett reservoir allowed to go to waste.
The water is taken from the mouth of the Dulzura conduit and flows for about fourteen miles through tunnels, concrete conduits and wooden flumes car- ried on trestles winding around and taking the contour of the mountains as it makes its downward course to the Dulzura creek. Some of these tunnels are cut through solid rock for a distance of over half a mile. From Dulzura creek the water drops from an elevation of one thousand four hundred feet to an elevation of four hundred and seventy-six feet at the Lower Otay reservoir, from eighteen to twenty miles distant, which means a total waste in head avail- able for power plant purposes of seven hundred feet.
One hundred and sixty feet above the Lower Otay is the Upper Otay reser- voir, which pours the accumulations of a certain drainage area when needed into the Lower Otay. From the Lower Otay reservoir the water is taken through a forty-inch wood stave pipe down to the southwest, where it branches into two portions, one, a thirty-six-inch wood stave pipe, leading to the Highland reser- voir, from which the city of Coronado receives its supply of water. The thirty- six-inch pipe leading toward San Diego reduces to a thirty-two-inch steel pipe where it crosses the Bonita valley, which again reduces to a thirty-inch pipe, which conveys the water to the Chollas Heights reservoir, where it is kept in storage in case of an emergency, should anything happen to the reservoir or pipe lines in town or between Chollas Heights and the University Heights reservoirs.
Adjacent to the Chollas Heights reservoir, which has a capacity of one bil- lion gallons, is the filtering plant, having a capacity of seven million five hundred thousand gallons daily. This plant is so designed that four more filters may be in- stalled, making a total capacity of twelve million gallons. The pipe line leading from Chollas Heights filtering plant to the University Heights reservoir is twenty- four inches in diameter and is constructed of continuous wood stave pipe. The distance from the Lower Otay to Chollas Heights is sixteen miles, and from the Chollas Heights to the University Heights reservoir is an' additional four miles.
At the University Heights reservoir, which is at an elevation of three hundred and ninety-six feet at the top of the aerating table, the water is taken in two directions, one to supply the upper high service and the other the lower high service. The upper high service takes its supply from the University Heights reservoir and pumps it into a standpipe, which is located on the corner of El Cajon avenue and Oregon street. This supplies all the area above the Uni-
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versity Heights reservoir. The University Heights reservoir throws its water by gravity to all of that area going to the north, such as La Jolla, Ocean Beach and Point Loma. It supplies the down town districts north of A street over to Front, east of Front to Date, and up to the north of Date street. The low serv- ice is supplied by water drained from the University Heights reservoir into what is known as the low service reservoir up on the heights of Old Town, at an elevation of one hundred and forty-two feet. The Old Town reservoir sup- plies the down town districts down to the south of A and to the west of First, the south of Date and that strip that lies between the San Diego bay and Arctic street.
The water on leaving University Heights reservoir and flowing to Point Loma is gathered in a small reservoir, whence it is pumped into a standpipe that supplies all the higher service on Point Loma. The lower service is sup- plied direct from the pipe that leads from University Heights. Ocean Beach and La Jolla are both supplied through an adequate pipe that runs directly from University Heights in a northerly direction along La Jolla boulevard, the water being gathered into reservoirs of ample capacity at both Ocean Beach and La Jolla. These reservoirs are so designed that during the heavy draught of the day they will take any overplus which the pipes cannot supply on account of the heavy draught.
An idea of the extension that will be needed in the future may be gained from the fact that our water system is growing at the rate of two and one- half miles a month, or thirty miles a year. On account of the rapid increase in the growth and population of this city, this department necessarily has to make estimates for the required extensions and developments to both the im- pounding and distributing system. While the present pipe line from the Otay reservoirs was expected at the time it was put in to be more than sufficient for what was needed in San Diego, yet it will be necessary to take immediate steps to double the supply, not only to have two lines, one in case of emergency, should anything happen to the other, but also because it is an absolute necessity to give an ample supply of water for San Diego in a year's time. This dual system of pipe lines from Otay to Chollas will also have to be extended from Chollas to the city, connecting with the distributing points, showing the locations for these proposed pipe lines, also for the installation of other reservoirs and mains with- in the city limits.
SEWER SYSTEM
Originally the sewer system of the city of San Diego only contemplated what we now call the down town district. It was devised by General Waring, and cost about $400,000. The system was planned when the city had about twenty thousand people, and at a time when water for flushing the system was an item to be taken into account; therefore, the mains laid were very small. While several larger mains have been put in, the down town lines are badly over- worked. Then again, the mains were laid from five to seven feet below the street surface, while now, to give drainage to basements, large mains must be laid at a sufficient depth to accommodate the requirements incident to the class of buildings now being erected.
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As the city expanded, so has the sewer system. All new extensions have been met from proceeds of bond issues. To keep pace with the rapid growth of the city has been a physical and financial impossibility. Small extensions, where houses are in sufficient number to justify the expense, are usually paid for out of the general tax levy known as the sewer and drainage fund. Last year the budget allowed that department but $25,000 but the urgent demands compelled additional appropriations, and the city has, during the year 1912, expended over $50,000 in sewer extensions, independent of those put in from the proceeds of bond issue. At this date there are urgent demands for small extensions to improved property which require at least $46,000.
On January 1, 1912, the sewer system, completed, amounted to one hundred and fifteen and one-half miles, and from that date to December Ist (eleven months), about twenty-six miles, making the system contain over one hundred and forty-one miles. The cost of the twenty-six miles constructed in the year 1912 was an average of ninety-four cents per lineal foot. Under the old con- tract system, the city paid over $1 per lineal foot. At present the city pays $2.50 a day for labor and the contractors, at that time, only paid $1.25 to $1.50 per day for labor.
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