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51
effect of the operations now carried on. The importance of
procuring this will increase each year as the limit of what can
be taken from any district with safety is gradually being reached.
From the River Lea we are of opinion that with adequate
additions to the present system of storage, 52,500,000 gallons
may be taken daily. We are of opinion that, by the construction
of storage reservoirs in the Thames Valley, at no great distance
above the intakes of the Companies, it will be possible to obtain
an average daily supply of 300,000,000 gallons without taking in
any objectional part of the flood water. The average daily flow
of the Thames at Teddington Weir, adding the water taken by
the Companies, is about 1,350,000,000 gallons per day. It will
thus be seen that, when 300,000,000 gallons are taken, there will
be left to flow down into the tidal portion of the river an average
daily quantity of not less than 1,000,000,000 ; and we think that
regulations could be framed under which the quantity we suggest
could be taken, not only without reducing the flow of the river
on the rare occasions of exceptional drought to the present
minimum, but in such a way as to secure that the volume of
water left in the river at these times should be substantially
greater than it is under existing conditions.
To our minds, one great advantage of such a scheme of
storage reservoirs is that it can be carried out progressively to
meet the increasing demands for water; and, should the population
not grow so rapidly as we have thought it right to
contemplate, the extensions may be from time to time deferred
as successive decennial enumerations reveal that the ratio of
increase is remaining stationary or even falling. From the
sources and by the methods we have mentioned, a daily supply
of 424,000,000 gallons can, in our opinion, be obtained. This is
a sufficient quantity to supply 35 gallons per head to a population
of 12,000,000 persons, which is about three-quarters of
a million in excess of what the total population of Greater
London, together with the outlying parts of Water London,
will have become in 1931, even if the ratio of increase in the last