USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1867-1870 > Part 3
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WATER WORKS.
This department of material interest, which in its in- ception and development may be considered one of the greatest benefits to the city, as in its result must prove the choicest blessing of the community, has occupied the attention of the government the past year, mostly in
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completing the work inaugurated the previous year, by providing reservoirs for storing, and pipes for distributing the water through the streets of the city, for the purpose of individual supply as well as to attain an equalization of pressures, and avoid the possibility of a deficiency in cases of emergency or accident. The work projected and the system proposed has been fully accomplished, and the demand for extension of pipes has I believe in all cases been granted.
The department therefore, as it now stands, with ample means of receiving, storing and distributing, may be con- sidered complete ; and no farther outlay will be required for the construction at present. The increase of invest- ment, however, for additional pipes in those streets not supplied, will of course be demanded and should be promptly met, where the interest upon the cost of the same shall be guaranteed.
The new distributing reservoir has been completed during the past year; the amount paid on account of the same in 1867 was $12,415.05. $1,301.70 have been expended in the construction of Gate Houses at the Storing Reservoir and at Bell Pond.
The total length of main pipe laid during the past year is 27,887 feet, and consists of the following sizes :
1,374 feet
16 inch pipe, 12.
1,267
8,411
8
2,197
6
66
8,252
4 66
3,872 66 3 6. 2,514 2
The above described pipe was laid through 52 streets, and the total cost of this outlay, including branches, re- ducing pieces, &c., is about $49,483.25.
The total length of main pipe now laid in the city is 141,198 feet.
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The total length of service pipe now laid is 29,160 feet, of which 11,300 feet have been put in the past year.
Fifty-eight gates have been set the past year, making the total number 227.
The number of hydrants in the city is 307; 49 public and 7 private having been added the past year.
The total amount expended upon the construction of the works to Jan. 1, 1867, was $303,193.93. Adding the amount expended during the past year and the bills out- standing now unpaid, and we find the entire investment Jan. 1, 1868, to be about $375,000.00.
The number of water takers registered Jan. 1, 1868, was 1,250, of which number 338 were added during the past year.
The Revenue of this department for the year 1867 was been as follows :
For sale of water to general consumers, $15,878 35
for hydrants and public
buildings, - -
6,070 00
For sale of water to new consumers (esti-
mated.) 2 500 00
Making the total income - - $24,448 35
The investment being $375,000, we find the income will pay six per cent. on the same, and leave a surplus of $1,948.35, which can be applied to a fund established to meet extraordinary contingencies, or in liquidation of the amount invested.
SEWERAGE.
The subject of sewerage, which has occupied the at- tention of the City Council for the past two years, con- tinues to be the most important material interest, effec- ting the comfort and sanitary condition of so large a number in the centre of the city. It is to be expected that so extensive a public improvement, effecting directly
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and indirectly every inhabitant, should meet with some dissatisfaction from various and different causes ; experi- ence, however, leads me to believe that misapprehension as to the present condition of the city, want of knowl- edge in the necessity, and lack of understanding as re- gards the methods adopted to attain the desired result, are the chief causes of complaint.
As agents of our fellow citizens, with no aim other than the welfare of the community in which we live, responsi- ble to them for every duty neglected as well as performed, we should, I think, look upon this great material improve- ment not only with the view of the city of to-day, but in its broad and more general relation to its future growth and necessity, which is really its most economic consid- eration.
Practically, there is a proper distinction to be made between drainage and sewerage. The one applying more especially to carrying off water from the surface, the other conducting away the impurities and soiling matter of a community. The apparent difficulty in realizing this distinction is the source of much misunderstanding. The residents upon or adjacent to brooks of water courses, claim that they have no need of sewerage, because they avail themselves of these water courses ; the right to drain surface or pure water into a brook cannot be question- ed, but admitting sewerage into a water course, there- by injuring the water, has long been established illegal ; and the very parties who claim a perfect exemption from the want of sewerage, are amenable to the law at any time. Another source of misunderstanding arises from the fact that several districts are relieved of sewerage matter through old established drains running through different private estates and across streets ; drains which were originally built for the purpose of conducting away
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water that might collect in cellars, and upon the surface of the land. These drains, in the course of time, and the general change incident to the introduction of water, &c., have now become the conductors of the entire sewerage of the district. In one instance the sewerage of several large and valuable estates is allowed to enter one of these drains, passing through the several estates and find- ing its exit under the vestry of one of our finest churches. The estates sewered do not perhaps feel the immediate necessity of any change in their system of drainage, but the proprietors of and worshippers in the church reasona- bly object, and apply to the city authorities for a remedy. A similar case exists in another section of the city, where an old drain has been appropriated by a large neighbor- hood and receives the sewerage thereform, being conduc- ted through the cellars of two or more houses, and pass- ing through a public square set apart by the liberality of the parties living in the neighborhood, flows uncovered through several estates, emptying into the Austin street brook. The drain as thus used can at any time be stopped upon the estate of any individual through which it may pass, which being the case, the parties who do not now see the need of sewerage to their estates, would very promptly apply to the city for immediate relief, which it might be impossible to render without vexatious de- lay.
In a certain district included in the territory already under contract to be sewered, there are fifteen to twenty houses, some of them of high cost and occupied by our best citizens, whose cellars are inundated a great portion of the time, sometimes to the depth of a foot or more, destroying the comfort and imperilling the health of the occupants. The owners of these estates have no possible means of relief at their control, and demand of the au- thorities some remedy.
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In the westerly part of the city, the only method of disposing of the sewerage, is to discharge the same into the soil, which is but partially absorbed, the residue flow- ing on the surface, or into the street, and the authorities are constantly importuned to abate the nuisance. I have thus claimed your attention in enumerating these few illustrations, that the true position might be brought be- fore you, and that you may realize the importance of the responsibility which rests upon the constituted authorities of the city in affording early relief to our citizens. The individual cannot act; the citizen whose cellar is inun- dated remains entirely helpless; it therefore becomes the duty of the corporation to take the initiative, and through its legal corporate power to provide the means and give the needed relief through a projected system of sewers, the cost of which, as a betterment, may prop- erly be assessed upon the estates directly benefitted.
It is the present and it should be the continued policy of the government to establsh public sewers in the high- ways, and to discourage the continuance of present and disallow the construction or maintenance of future private drains in the public streets ; a policy which in time will commend itself equally to the citizen as well as the cor- poration, and on grounds of personal economy as well as the public necessity. The existence of private drains in public streets is a source of continued and vexatious trouble, as so frequently demonstrated to the board of health in its operations during the past two years. Com- plaints of nuisances occasioned by water in cellars, stag- nant pools upon the surface, the flowage of sewerage matter upon adjoining estates or into the streets, are of almost daily occurance during the summer months, and the board of health is summoned to visit the estate com-
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plained of. The occupant of the estate is willing to abate the nuisance at whatever cost, and looks to the authori- ties to suggest some remedy for the evil. The neighbor- ring estates may enjoy the advantages of sewerage by some drain laid through the street at private expense ; the party complained of has no right to enter his sewerage into this private drain, and the authorities have no power to compel it. Cases of this and a similar nature confirm me in the conviction that it is a matter of great impor- tance to the future as well as the present welfare of the city, that all drains and sewers should be under the direct and entire control of the corporation, that the board of health or any other department of the government may, in the performance of their duties, avail themselves of these outlets for the benefit of the citizen; and having the full jurisdiction be thus enabled to carry out such sanitary regulations as will provide for the establishment and maintenance of the health and comfort of a neigh- borhood or section of the city.
In March of last year, a special act was passed by the Legislature, granting the city of Worcester the ncessary powers to appropriate certain brooks for purposes of sew- erage, to take and hold, by purchase or otherwise, such real estate as should be adjudged by the City Council to be necessary, and also to assess upon estates benefitted a proportionate share of the expenditure of the city for drains and sewers .- This act was submitted to and ap- proved by the citizens, at legal meetings held in the differ- ent wards for the purposes named, on the 16th day of April following, and by a large majority in the affirma- tive, became a law.
In April last negotiations were effected with the heirs of the Fox estate, the result of which has been the pur- chase of the water power connected with Fox mill, and
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the transfer to the city of certain lands and privileges, the details of which are so fully covered by the report made to the City Council by the joint standing commit- tee on sewers, to whom the subject was referred, and through whom the whole matter was consummated, that I embody the same in this address, as the most concise form of presenting to you the whole ground covered by the case, as also to place before our constituents, in a more permanent form, the record of so important a trans- action.
REPORT OF COMMITTEE.
The Joint Standing Committee on Sewers, to whom was referred that portion of the Mayor's Address relating to the sewerage of the city, also the petition of P. L. Moen, Edward Earle, Levi Lincoln, Isaac Davis, John Barnard, Henry Chapin, Calvin Foster, and 120 others, praying that Fox's dam be removed and that Mill Brook be made available for drainage purposes, would respect- fully submit the following report :
The fact of the immediate necessity of establishing some comprehensive system of drainage for the city is, we believe, not only generally admitted by all classes of our citizens, but absolutely demanded in every quarter of our city. The petition to the Legislature for an amendment to the City Charter, granting power to ap- propriate the several water-courses in the city, has been duly presented, and will undoubtedly be passed upon at an early day. The requisite power having already been granted for the appropriation of Mill Brook, the commit- tee have devoted their particular attention to this section, with the view of devising some method whereby practi- cal operations might be at once commenced, and the densely settled part of our city, dependent upon this
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water-course for its sewerage, relieved from its present want of the means of drainage.
The committee were fully impressed with the neces- sity of the removal of the Fox dam, as the important initiative step which must inevitably be taken before any progress, or even a beginning, could be made. They have, therefore, directed their attention to the means whereby the city might become the possessor of this water privilege at the Fox mill, and thus be enabled to assume the entire control of the water and to remove the dam. The legal difficulties, liabilities and delay which would necessarily attend an arbitrary appropriation of this property, the estimated value of the privilege as a power as compared with steam, as well as its practical usefulness to the demands of the mill, together with the deprecia- tion of the property resulting from the removal of the water power, were facts presented to, and thoroughly discussed by the committee. Much time has also been spent in the proper investigation and inquiry, with the view of obtaining such an estimate of the value of the privilege as should guide them in the necessary negotia- tions to be made.
The result of the negotiations of the committee with the representatives of the owners of the property is as follows :
The water privilege, consisting of the dam, flume, their structure, and the land occupied by them, also all the rights in the North Pond pertaining thereto, with such land belonging to the Fox estate as may be required by the city to construct and maintain a water-course as pro- posed, shall be deeded and sold to the city of Worcester upon the following considerations and conditions, viz :
The city of Worcester shall pay the heirs of the Fox estate the sum of $36,000 in the scrip of the city, pay- able in ten years, with six per cent. interest.
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The city shall also furnish a limited number of gallons of water per diem from the city aqueduct for the ordi- nary purposes of the mill, free of expense for a term of ten years after the expiration of the present lease of the property. The city also to assume and make the neces- sary arrangements with the present lessees of the prop- erty, whereby the lessors shall be guaranteed against any loss which may occur to the lessees by the removal of the water power, during the existence of the present lease which terminates July 1, 1870.
Agreeable to the conditions imposed in the purchase of the water power and privileges, the committee en- tered into negotiation with Messrs. Messinger & Wright, for the purchase and transfer of their rights as lessees of the property, and the relinquishment of all claims and damages that might be occasioned by the removal of the dam ; the result of these negotiations is as follows :
The city shall pay to Messinger & Wright the sum of $3,000 towards the expense of a new boiler, washing machine, pump, &c .; and shall also pay them at the rate of $200 per month for fuel, labor, &c., when the boiler is in operation, from the time the city deprive them of the water power, until their present lease with the Fox heirs is terminated by limitation or otherwise. The city also to supply them with such an amount of water from the aqueduct as they shall require for the legitimate pur- poses of the mill, over and above the quantity used and paid for by them.
The committee are deeply sensible of the great and peculiar responsibility which has been placed upon them in the discharge of the duties committed to their care and subject to their action ; and while it is with feelings of distrust and reluctance they have assumed so great a burden, involving large pecuniary liabilities as well as
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judicious foresight in inaugurating the important work of providing sewerage for the city, still they have not been willing to evade the responsibility, and postpone action for others to assume ; but have endeavored to act in the premises with a view of attaining the result at as early a day as is practicable, at the lowest possible cost, and without litigation. The committee believe that the result of their negotiations transfers to the city valua- ble rights and privileges absolutely essential; they also believe that no more favorable opportunity will be likely to arise whereby the city can become the possessor of this property.
MILL BROOK.
The committee authorized by the City Council, having advertised for proposals for excavating and walling up Mill Brook 1350 feet in length from the old lock at Green street, awarded the contract to Adam Dawson & Co., who commenced work on the third day of June, and complet- ed the same about the first of. December, and which was formally accepted by the city Dec. 20th.
The amount of excavation and refilling of earth in this section has been 18,187 cubic yards, and the amount of rock excavation 642 cubic yards. The number of perch of stone laid in the walls amounts 5,554 and 24- 100ths, and the rubbling outside the wall 958 perch. The total amount paid Dawson & Co., including $1,962- .72, being the extra cost of the two bridges built on the line, is $47,925.38, which completes the contract.
The additional cost incident to the diversion of the stream of water while the work was progressing, in con- structing flumes, boxes, &c., together with the items of engineering expense, amounts, to $1,720.35, making the total cost of the work already done on Mill Brook, (1364 feet in length,) $49,645.73. This amount, added to the
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purchase of the water power, and other conditions of the contract, makes a total cost of $90,045.73, which will be added to the debt of the city and be represented by its "Sewer Bonds," payable June 15, 1877. Bonds to the amount of $66,000 have already been issued, leaving $24,000 to be converted, which will be accomplished as soon as is practicable.
In order that the full benefits of the work already accomplished in this section of the brook may be realiz- ed, and the results of the labor and expenditure be made available to the inhabitants of the more densely populat- ed parts of our city, I would earnestly recommend your immediate action in the continuance of this great mate- rial enterprise, and trust that the proper committee will be authorized at an early day to complete a contract for excavating and walling up another section of this brook from the present terminus of the work, to a point limit- ed only by the possibility of completion during the com- ing season ; the cost of which will be added to the city debt, and be represented by the bonds of the city paya- ble June 15, 1878.
I may properly add, that the anticipated cost of the work upon another section will be less per lineal foot than that already accomplished, as in the progress of the structure the height of the walls and consequently their thickness, becomes gradually less ; although any estimate of the cost must be only an approximate, being very largely governed by the nature of the soil met, and the increased difficulty of disposing of the stream of water.
SEWERS.
The necessity of definite action in providing sewers in the streets of the city, to afford that immediate, per- sonal and permanent relief so much demanded from all
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quarters, was a subject which forced itself upon the at- tention of the government in the early months of last year, and after the necessary preliminary arrangements were affected, a contract was concluded with Messrs. Tar- bell & Barney of Boston, for the construction of sewers in certain streets of the city. The section known as the Austin street district, was selected as one needing per- haps the earliest attention, together with Pleasant street, and the streets leading into the same, and Kendall street ; work under this contract was commenced early in Aug- ust, and has been continued through the season until about Dec. Ist. The number of lineal feet contemplated in the specification which forms the basis of this contract is 20,605, of sizes varying from 12 inches in diameter to the dimension of 40 x 60 inches, and drains a surface of about 120 acres. The amount of the contract is estima- ted at $77,256.45. The amount of work already accom- plished under the contract, (and which will be resumed as early in the season as is practicable,) is as follow ; 722} feet of sewer on Kendall street, at a cost of $2835.72; Pleasant street, 1920} feet, costing $8872.07; and Gold and Southbridge streets, 1839 feet, at a cost of $18,013- .83. There has also been laid by the city, independent of the contract, 684 feet of sewer from Harvard court and Eden street to Main street, at a cost of $801.78, and 640 feet on Lincoln street, at a cost $860.50. Making the total amount of expense the past year for sewers in the streets of the city, $31,383.90, which amount is rep- resented by a temporary loan, and will, with the accum- ulted interest thereon, be assessed upon the estates bene- fitted, when the completion of the sewerage of the dis- trict shall have been effected. In connection with these sewers in the streets, the city have arranged for the sur- face drainage of the highways by constructing cesspools
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and inlets, and have also inserted 19 man holes at a cost of $2155.73, which amount may properly be assumed by the corporation and not assessed upon the estates, as the City Council shall hereafter determine.
The subject of the assessment of the expense of these sewers laid in the streets of the city, upon the estates benefitted, will necessarily claim your attention during the coming year, and although a responsibility of a pe- culiarly delicate character, must be assumed, and as duty, be accomplished to the best of our ability. All systems of assessments are liable to manifest imperfection. The systems adopted by other cities have been carefully stud- ied, but cannot be taken as a precedent or afford us an absolute guide. The peculiarity of location, the entire absence of tide water or large stream, the great diversity of surface, and the individual necessities of our people, are elements which, entering the subject, preclude the possibility of assuming any established system known and already adopted ; and although the defects of any system may be readily admitted, yet it is to be hoped we may attain the desired end through such theory and method as shall commend itself for its practicability of operation as well as equitableness of result.
The completion of the sewers now under contract will afford immediate and permanent relief to the inhabitants of the section covered thereby.
The necessity of drainage in some other parts of the city demands attention as imperatively as those which have already received the attention of the government.
I would therefore call to your notice the territory ad- jacent to Hanover street, and also that part of the city west of Chestnut and Harvard streets, with the view that measures may be adopted at as early a day as is practicable to provide these sections the facilities of sew- erage.
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POLICE.
This protective department of our municipal organiza- tion, which is the more closely connected with the execu- tive branch, and with whom is invested the power of appointment and direction, appears to be one of the re- quisite attributes of a large community; its value is most forcibly attested when the necessity of the hour shall demand the exhibition of its power ; although most valuable in checking the sources from whence spring dis- order, and at all times exerting a salutary influence, even although it be unrecognized and invisible.
The absolute need of an established police force in the regulation and government of the city, cannot reasona- bly be questioned; it therefore devolves upon the higher branch of the Council to establish the same, fix the num- ber who shall constitute the force, with their compensa- tion, and define the duties of the members. In estab- lishing the numerical force of this department, it will, of course, be impossible to satisfy all. An enlargement of the force will, of course, increase the cost of the depart- ment correspondingly. A force equal to the city of Bos- ton would oblige us to increase our number to 67; of Lowell, to 35; of Cambridge, to 36; and adopting the ratio of Springfield, which shows the smallest force of any city, it would give us 21 men, while our present force is 24, including officers.
In seasons of disorder, when the demands of the pub- lic cannot be met by the present force, inefficiency is the general charge; when quiet reigns for a protracted sea- son, and the active services of the force do not seem to be called out, the cost of maintenance is the point of attack.
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