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information in connection with the water supply : and first with
reference to
Storage, &c.— The West Middlesex Company, he states, having large reservoir
capacity for subsidence, avoid taking in water during floods, and they have
increased the storage capacity of their subsiding and unfiltered water reservoirs at
Barnes by nearly 35 million gallons, raising the total to 91 million gallons.
Nevertheless they are about to construct an additional reservoir to contain
24 million gallons, and two filter-beds of one acre each.
The Grand Junction Company have constructed much-needed additions of
impounding and subsiding reservoirs near to the intakes at Hampton, and are
constructing additional filters at these works capable of filtering 4 million gallons
per day. The addition to, and reconstruction of, the existing filters at the Kew
Bridge Works have greatly improved this Company's supply.
The Chelsea Company have completed their works, and now the intake of the
subsiding reservoirs at Molesey is closed when the river is in bad condition. This
Company's power of supply is in excess of the demands of their district, and they
are enabled to supply effectually filtered water at all times.
Filtration.— Great improvements have been effected of late years in respect of
filtration; and water is now taken in at Hampion and Molesey where it is usually
in far better condition than lower down, as, for example, at Seething Wells, where,
till lately, the Chelsea Company had their intake. The rate of filtration of water
should not exceed 540 gallons per square yard of filter-bed each 24 hours, and at
this rate filtration should be effective. The materials of filters are mainly sand,
shells, and gravel (increasing in coarseness towards the bottom) arranged in layers
of different thicknesses.
Domestic Pollution of Water.— The efforts of the Companies to supply wellfiltered
water are frequently neutralised by the neglect of householders, who allow
their cisterns, &c., to fall into a filthy state. Water, moreover, often undergoes
very dangerous pollution, of which the householder maybe all unconscious, viz.:—
through the "waste pipe" being connected with the house-drain, and consequently
with the sewer, to which it becomes a ventilator. Foul air is thus admitted within
the covered receptacle, and becoming absorbed by the water confers on it qualities
of a deleterious character, so that it may in favouring circumstances be the means of
spreading disease. No more familiar example can be quoted than typhoid fever,
endemics of which have been traced to the pollution of water in the domestic
cistern.
It is to be regretted that the Water Companies generally should have failed in
their duty to the public by neglecting to exercise their power, under the "14th
regulation,"* to cause the abolition of the waste-pipe universally. The Chelsea
* The 14th regulation reads as follows:— "No overflow or waste-pipe other than a 'warningpipe'
shall be attached to any cistern supplied with water by the Company, and every such
overflow or waste-pipe existing at the time when these regulations come into operation shall be
removed, or at the option of the consumer, shall be converted into an efficient * warning-pipe' within
two calendar months next after the Company shall have given to the occupier of, or left at the
premises in which such cistern is situate, a notice in writing requiring such alteration to be
made." A very desirable sanitary reform would be achieved if co-ordinate powers were granted
to "nuisance authorities" to enable them to put this regulation into force; and it would be well
worth enquiring whether such co-ordinate powers might not be obtained by making application to
the Government in the manner prescribed by the Metropolis Water Act, 1871 ?