USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I > Part 90
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Water Supply .- There are but few great cities in the United States that have at the present time an adequate and at the same time a satisfactory water supply. The cities bordering on the Great Lakes are, on the whole, best provided for in this regard. It is possible for them to obtain an excellent supply in unlimited amount. New Orleans and St. Louis, have the Father of Waters to draw from, and while the amount of their supply can never fall short its quality is far from satisfactory. Of the principal cities of the Eastern border, there is not one. that has not serious ground for anxiety as to the character or amount, one or both, of its supply. All of them are making strenuous efforts to improve their respec- tive supplies, and relief is possible to most. The cities that are at the greatest dis- advantage are those situated in the river valleys of the country, except such as have been already named as occupying the Mississippi Valley. In many cases these cities have no possible source of supply except the rivers, but these samo rivers are made to receive an ever-increasing volume of sewage and manufacturing waste from the growing towns situated on their banks. The quality of the water is therefore constantly deteriorating and often passes the limits of safety.
Columbus is on the whole favorably located for an inland town in the matter of water supply. Its river is by no means a great one; but still it and its main tributaries carry a large volume of water in the course of the year. They have no lakes or reservoirs along their courses, in the usual significations of the term, it is
688
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
true; but they still contain a large volume of stored water in their broad valleys. The latter have been filled, it will be remembered, mainly with sand and gravel for a depth of one hundred feet or more below the present surface. In their storage quality these porous beds constitute the equivalent of a shallow lake equal in size to the combined areas of the valleys, but they are better in many respects than any lake could be, for the waters that they contain are protected from the effect of the sun and to some extent from pollution. The resorvoirs pro- per of Central Ohio at the present time are largely overgrown with a peculiar aquatie vegetation, the decay of which affects unfavorably all of their supply. The underground water, on the other hand, is always clear and cool and free from some sources of defilement, but unfortunately it is not protected against dangerous contamination of every sort.
It is easy to be seen, in view of the facts that have now been given, that most districts of Columbus command an abundant and excellent natural water supply. Wells sunk or driven to a depth not exceeding thirty feet, and frequently to not more than half this depth, command a generous and unfailing amount of cool and well filtered water. The exceptions to be noted are found in the northern por- tions of the city, in which the shale beds lie at or near the surface, and in some of the districts in which the boulder clay oceurs in unusually heavy deposit. In the latter case wells are sometimes driven to a depth of one hundred feet without meeting any promising water vein; while in the districts in which the shales lie shallowest they affect in a characteristic way the water reached in wells. The quantity is small and the quality is inferior. But in ninetenths of our area the search for water is successful without the aid of any form of the divining rod, ancient or modern.
What is the character of this water supply? The supply, in a state of nature, I answer, is on the whole of high grade. Filtered through limestone gravel, as it is, it carries of necessity a considerable percentage of carbonate of lime ; but there is, as a rule, no excessive amount of other minerals. It is clear, cool and abundant and it deposits little or no sediment. These statements, it must be observed, apply to this underground water in a state of nature. But when a city is in process of rapid growth, the natural conditions are no longer maintained. The porous beds of the surface that admit the rainfall so freely, admit with equal freedom all the products of waste that buman occupation brings with it. Cesspools, no less than wells, are sunk in the gravel, and the poisonous products of many lines of manu- facture are returned to the earth in place of the pure water that was drawn out of it. A threatening change at once appears in the character of the water supply. Proper tests show the presence of elements of danger, and after a little, typhoid fever or some like disease spreads from the well in a distinct circle of infection.
Sanitary science in its earliest days drew a conclusion which it has never been obliged to retract or modify, viz., that water derived from wells in thickly settled towns is altogether unsafe. Whoever uses it does so at his peril. No harm may come for a generation or two, it is true; but, on the other hand, the germs of a pestilence may spring from it at any hour with explosive violence. The recogni- tion of this line of facts led Columbus to take up a quarter of a century ago the
689
GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHIY.
question of a public water supply. From what source could it draw such a supply ? Manifestly not directly from its river channels. The turbidity of their floodstages alone would render this altogether impracticable. No other resource was available but the sinking of large wells in the valley gravels. The pumping station was located in the middle of the broad valley and the wells dug here have furnished a supply fairly comparable in quality with the water derived from the best grade of similar wells throughout the city. It is well filtered, cool and in moderately good volume. A measure of protection has been thought to be secured for the water by sinking into or through a local bed of clay buried in the gravel, and by drawing the water from these lower sources. The city has taken great satisfaction in the belief that it is securing a well-protected supply. But it is doubtful whether any efficient protection has been reached in this way. The turbidity brought about by even a slight rise in the river can be promptly recog- nized in the distributing pipes of the city. The truth is, there is no universal or even general order of these drift deposits, and it is not safe to draw conclusions as to the particular channels and reservoirs of these underground waters. Sometimes when long dronghts have prevailed the main river has been taken directly into the pipes. This is never done without a manifest lowering of the character of the supply. On several different occasions during the last few years the city water has been found to be decidedly open to suspicion.
The new pumping station of the east side has been but recently put into operation, but it promises to make a contribution of great value to the health and safety of the city. The wells are located in the Alum Creek valley and a very large volume of water, originally artesian, has been found in them. There is a larger percent of iron in the Alum Creek water than in the older supply, but in all other respects it reaches the best standard of the natural water of Central Ohio.
The following table of analyses shows the character of the Columbus supply. These analyses were all made by Doctor Curtis C. Howard, Professor of Chemistry and Toxicology in Starling Medical College, and were kindly furnished by him for this chapter. The examinations go back, as will be seen, to 1885 and cover the water from both the western and the eastern sources. It would scarcely be in keeping with the character of this chapter to discuss the significance of all the elements shown by these analyses. Those who are trained to this line of work will see that the table represents on the whole excellent water. The only sub- stance reported that is out of proportion is the albuminoid ammonia. This stands for previous contamination, but there is no ground for condemning these waters on this account.
44
690
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
ANALYSES BY PROFESSOR HOWARD, PARTS PER 100,000.
Oxygen Required
Free Ammonia.
Albuminoid Ammonia
Nitrous Acid.
Nitric Acid.
Chlorine.
Total Solids .*
1.
.30
.001
.006
.001
.042
.97
38.6
2.
.18
.001
.005
trace
.036
.74
61.6
3.
.21
.001
.008
trace
.055
.99
51.7
4.
.16
.028
.008 m
.001
.50
56.2
5.
.14
.015
,009
.001
.62
54.7
6.
.13
.611
.007
.001
.56
52.0
#Multiply by six to obtain grains per gallon.
1. April 3, 1885, Water from west side filtering galleries.
2. October 30, 1885. Water from tunnel, west side, showing increased hardness.
3. April 8, 1886. Water from same source.
4. November 22, 1888. Water from well, east side pumping station.
5. October 24, 1890. Water from hydrant Starling Medical College, showing mixed supply from east and west pumping stations.
6. February 9, 1892. Water from same source.
Drainage and Sewerage .- The natural drainage of Columbus, as has been already shown, is well provided for. It was originally sluggish in a few localities, but slight relief in the way of open ditches was all that such districts required to render them arable. By far the greater part of the city would rid itself of the heaviest surplus of water and snow with all needful dispatch through numerous and well distributed waterways, and particularly through the porous beds supplied in gravel terraces and great valleys. The city went on for many years without water works or sewerage. Each honsehold derived its water supply from its own wells, and all the forms of waste were disposed of in vaults and cesspools sunk in the same lot on which the well was located. But the natural consequences of this system soon began to manifest themselves in the more closely built portions of the city. The water of certain wells would become notably bad and the owners would be compelled to abandon them, but other wells near by would be made to render service in their place, until they too would fall under deserved condemnation. It is surprising that persons of even ordinary intelligence should fail to recognize the danger that was sure to result from this double use of the freely permeable beds upon which the city is built. If these beds could be rendered transparent for a single moment so that the constant drainage of vault and cesspool by well could be seen and traced by the eye, such a feeling of disgust and such a sense of danger would be inspired that this use, or rather abuse of the soil, would be at once and forever abandoned. But the soil is as good as transparent to those who are able to observe the facts involved and to reason soundly upon them. The sheet of slowly descend- ing water can be followed from the polluted surface through all the vile accumula-
691
GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY.
tions that we have buried in the earth, down to the springs of the fountains on which we depend for a supply of this vital element, the water which we drink. If the soil could be kept sernpulously free from all the agencies of contamination, we might continue to depend upon local wells, as in the beginning. But the soil cannot be kept free, under occupation. It is certain to be defiled in various ways and some of these involve the possibility of pestilence. City wells are incompatible with the public health and the public safety, and must be everywhere abandoned, but even if they are given up, the waste of the city cannot be safely entrusted to the soil that underlies it. There are other dangers besides that of poisoned water to which such a use is certain to lead. A filthsodden soil becomes a prolific source of general and specific disease. It is a hotbed for development of the germs of diph . theria, typhoid and other pestilences. As soon as due intelligence is directed to the facts it becomes evident that the removal of the excretory waste is one of the most urgent requirements that can be made upon a city in the interest of the health of its people.
Columbus took up this work of providing itself with sewerage, just as grow- ing cities in this country generally take it up ; that is, by piecemeal and with an entire absence of system or wise forecast. Small and shallow sewers were at first constructed to meet the most urgent necessities. When found inadequate, they were replaced by larger ones, but still no comprehensive system was brought into their construction. Every sewer was carried by the shortest course to the river. No other disposition of their contents received the slightest consideration. All the firstbuilt sewers terminated in the central portion of the valley ; or, in other words, in the heart of the city. The work has been carried forward by common councils, the constitution of which undergoes rapid or even complete change in the course of two or three years. Furthermore, the construction has been carried on under the direction of city engineers whose terms of office have been alike brief and uncertain. Under such conditions, it is no surprise to find that many of our sewers have been unwisely located. Most have been constructed under inadequate supervision and are therefore poorly built, and they have cost the city much more than they should have done. But these complaints are not peculiar to Columbus. They can be applied without change to the experience of almost all of our large cities. It is only an aggravation to set before ourselves what might have been done under a wise and comprehensive plan, efficiently and economically carried out. It is also to be borne in mind that our knowledge in regard to these subjects has been advancing rapidly, and that work done now would be likely to be plan- ned and carried forward far more wisely than work undertaken fifteen or twenty years ago.
Within the last twenty years a new system of sewerage has been introduced into this country that promises relief from some of the worst evils of the older or established system. It consists of a separation of the sewage proper from the storm water, by an independent system of pipes. The older system makes use of a single pipe or conduit in which the comparatively small but fairly regular flow of sewage is mingled with the irregular and occasionally excessive volume of storm and drainage water. To convey this mingled volume requires a large sewer, for
692
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
which, ninetenths of the time, there is nothing like full use. When these two incongruous contributions are thus mingled, on the one hand, storm and drainage water, and one the other, sewage proper, it is expensive and often impracticable to separate them again. The storm water, if not further polluted, could be turned back into the general circulation of the river without serious offense or danger. But the sewage must be carried through some process requiring the expenditure of special knowledge, and also of time and money before it can be safely intro- dueed into a river which is likely to be used for water supply at some point lower in its course. If, however, the small volume of sewage is kept separate from the storm water it can be treated or utilized at comparatively small outlay.
If the question as to which is the more desirable system for Columbus could be taken up as a new one without reference to existing conditions and past expen- ditures, there is little doubt as to the verdict that would be rendered by the best knowledge of our time. Unquestionably, in the author's opinion, the decision would be in favor of the separate system. But the question cannot be approached in this way. Columbus is irrevocably committed to the combined system. Sev- eral million dollars have already been expended in the construction of these great lines and their tributaries, and with them every wellbuilt house of the city is connected ; furthermore, street improvements, aggregating an even larger expendi- ture than the sewers, have been made on the basis of complete and permanent work in the matter of these buried drainage channels. For better or worse, there- fore, we must adjust ourselves to the established system.
What are the chief features of the present situation ? 1. In the first place, the old system of carrying the sewage by the shortest course to the rivers and dis- charging it there has resulted in an evil of large proportions. During the sum- mer, when the river shrinks to small volume, the sewage becomes the overmaster- ing element in it; and instead of the crystal stream of the early days, rippling over a clean and gravelly bed, we have a channel coated with hateful slime, through which a sluggish current crawls, black as ink and rank with all the offen- sive and poisonous odors of decomposing animal waste. The prevailing westerly wind catches up this horrible effluvium and wafts it over the adjacent quarter of the city, certainly to the discomfort and disgust and probably to the impairment of the health of thousands of our people who have built here pleasant homes for themselves. When, a few years ago, the offense seemed unbearable, the city coun- cil, against the advice of the intelligent friends of sanitary science in the city, ordered a dam to be constructed across the river below the mouth of the largest sewer, to receive and dilute its hateful contents. The measure resulted as it was foreseen it must result, and taught anew the lesson that it is often better to "bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of." The dam was blown out finally, and the district was temporarily relieved of the worst nuisance that ingenuity could create.
2. In the second place, the city has found itself obliged to build at an immense outlay an intercepting sewer to catch the outflow of all these older lines and trans- port it to a new and deeper eddy of the river, two miles below the city limits. Temporary relief will probably be secure by this means; but the rapid growth of
693
GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY.
the city and the additional publie water supply already described are steadily augmenting the volume of our sewage. The outlet as planned is sure to create a serious local offense in the course of a few years, and it is by no means certain that the stench arising from the sewage will not return to plague ns, even within the boundaries that we are seeking to proteet. In any case we are inflicting, by the course we have adopted and pursued from the first, an irreparable injury on all who occupy the valley below us. We are ruining a river that does not belong to any one town or district, and that in reality belongs much less to us than to the oeenpants of the fertile and beautiful valley that extends from Columbus to the Ohio River.
3. Is there any relief for this unfortunate state of things, or is this the price which every river valley must pay for supporting one or more prosperous cities within its limits? Sanitary science has tanght us, and especially through the experience of European cities and towns, principally in England but partly on the Continent, during the last twentyfive years, that these evils, serious though they are, are not irremediable. Various systems have been devised for correcting them or at least reducing them to lower terms. One system stands out preeminent in this list and offers us, when intelligently and efficiently applied, full exemption from this threatening source of danger and offense. It is the thoroughly natural system which invokes the powerful agency of the soil and the air. It is known as the method of downward intermittent filtration. The sewage is applied to land pro- perly prepared for this purpose by thorough underdraining. The flow of the sewage must be interrupted so that the air can take its turn in passing through the soil. By this means a natural agency of decomposition is brought into play by which the nitrogenous elements of waste, which are the most harmful of all, are broken up into innocuous compounds. This work is done by one of the great swarms of microscopie life with which we are just becoming acquainted and which, in this case, we know as one form of bacterium.
The sewage nourishes and stimulates plant growth to a remarkable degree. It transforms barren sands into fruitful fields. On land which is properly prepared for it, gardeners and farmers eagerly compete for the sewage supply. But con- tinuous plant growth is not necessary for the efficiency of the process. The work can go on without the agency of vegetable growth and takes place in the winter as well as in the summer, the warmth of the water preventing freezing even in climates much more severe than that of Ohio. The effluent water is not only fil- tered but purified. Its chemical character has been changed and it is now in all respects fit to be returned to the river from which it was taken, none the worse for the detour which it has made through the artificial channels that we have con- structed for it and the all-important office it has subserved of carrying away the waste of a great city.
This is the step that remains to be taken in the publie improvements of Columbus A sewage farm must be added to its sanitary equipment before it can do justice either to its own people or to its neighbors. Land apparently well adapted to this purpose is available. The amount of land required cannot be determined until the local conditions are thoroughly understood. European prac-
694
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.
tice assigns ten acres to the thousand of population for sewage farm from which some returns are sought in the way of vegetable growth. When this lastnamed element is disregarded, a much smaller amount of land will suffice. If the system were once put into operation by the establishment of even a small sewage farm on the broad plains of the Scioto, below the city, there seems reasonable ground to believe that it would grow of itself. The owners of adjacent farms would find it to their interest to prepare their lands for the vitalizing flood, and the value of all farms to which the sewage could thus be applied would be permanently enhanced by sueb contiguity. To associate the vegetables and fruits of our dietscale with the purification of city sewage may seem distasteful to some when first proposed, but a closer inspection shows us that there is no ground for anxiety or even for prejudice in such a relation. The alchemy of nature is fully adequate to the trans- formation required, and in fact it is only by the establishment and maintenance of some system of return to the soil of that which has been drawn out of it, that the life of the race can be indefinitely prolonged. Shakespeare's lines may be para- phrased in this connection :
Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay, May ripen grain that keeps gaunt want away ; Strange that the dust that held the world in awe Should find its place within a hungry maw.
When all the fever-breeding wells within the central districts of the city have been filled; when uncemented vaults are no longer tolerated within its limits; when the basins from which its water supply is drawn are adequately policed and protected ; and when a well-appointed sewage farm is added to its outfit, Colum- bus may enjoy the satisfaction of having done its duty in a sanitary way, and may complacently expect the rewards that come from obedience to the commandments pertaining to the public health. These rewards will consist in the exemption of its people from many forms of zymotic disease, and from the heavy taxes that such diseases levy, and in the increasing comfort and longer term of human life within its boundaries.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CLIMATE AND HYGIENE. I.
In their influence upon the health of human beings, climate and locality, although independent agents, are often confused with one another. Much that is charged to meteorological conditions which are beyond the control of man is found, on closer examination, to be due to local or terrene conditions which may and should be essentially changed. It has been said that, as a rule, health may be preserved in any climate by the exercise of reasonable care, yet it cannot be denied that certain atmospheric influences, acting in conjunction with those of locality, may produce deleterious conditions against which no precaution is proof. The remedy lies in improving the influences, not of the climate, but of the locality, and in doing this, civilization performs one of its principal functions. The annual deathrate of London which, two centuries ago, was as high as eighty per thousand, is now less than twentythree. Yet the climate of London has under- gone no essential change. On the other hand, civilization has produced immense changes in the modes and comforts of life, and this is no less true of Central Ohio than it is of the chief city of Europe. We live under the same skies and are subject to the same atmospheric phenomena as the early settlers, but with very different consequences because of the different relations we bear to the operations of Nature.
Climate and hygiene are therefore associated together, and here chosen for conjunctive treatment, not because the one is believed necessarily to sway the other, but because the one may radically affect the other by acting upon condi- tions which lie mainly if not entirely within our own control.
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