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24
SECTION C—SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Water Supply.
Richmond has two separate sources of drinking water:—
(a) From local wells.
(b) From the Metropolitan Water Board.
(a) Richmond Borough Council owns seven wells. One of
them, known as the Terrace Gardens well is 320 feet deep and
reaches two miles of adits in the chalk. From this is obtained a pure
and wholesome water which is softer in character than the supply
obtained from the remainder. These are shallow wells which draw
their water from the ballast covering the London clay.
The water is not filtered but is chlorinated before being passed
into supply to the public.
Early in the year it became apparent that the supplies from the
two Ham wells were not maintaining a sufficiently high standard of
purity and it was decided that the whole question of the local water
supply should be investigated in detail.
Resulting from these investigations and advice taken from
experts, the two Ham Wells were put out of commission and certain
other alterations were made which resulted in increased control over
the chjorination process.
The local supply now comes from the deep well, from two
shallow wells in the Old Deer Park and from two shallow wells in
Petersham. Water from all these wells is pumped to the low level
reservoir at Petersham where it is chlorinated. Water takes four to
five hours to pass through the reservoir and is then pumped to the
high level reservoir in Richmond Park where it remains for 24 hours
before passing into public supply.
The amount of free chlorine contained in the water issuing
from the low level reservoir is estimated every two hours by day and
night. The amount of free chlorine in the water passing from the
Richmond Park reservoir to public supply is estimated daily.
In addition to these precautions samples of both the unchlorin'
ated well waters and the chlorinated water passing into public supply
are taken at regular intervals for bacteriological, physical and
chemical examination.