View report page

34
The whole of the filter bod walls at Lea Bridge have boon theroughly
cleansed and washed with hot lime. The banks of the River Lea
above the Company's intakes are perambulated daily for several miles,
in order to provent any noxious matter being thrown into the river,
and for the prompt removal of anything objectionable that may bo
discovered.
The mains and services of the various districts have been theroughly
scoured by the opening of the plugs, and this course will be continued.
The East London Company has further extended its area of constant
supply to almost the whole of its district within the metropolitan
area, but states that the waste of water is so enormous that in one
week recently the water pumped reached the enormous volume of 288
million gallons.
The wilful waste of water in the lower levels prevents the high
houses in the neighbourhood receiving as copious a supply in their
upper cisterns as they otherwise would have.
Wherever there is a constant service the Company will fix, on
application by the local autherity, standpipes to enable the poorer
classes to draw off the water direct from the mains.
The water companies are not sanitary autherities, and cannot
therefore compel their consumers to cover in and cleanse their cisterns.
It cannot bo too strongly urged upon the public that all the precautions
taken by the Companies are of little value if the pure wator be
dolivered into a foul cistern.
Tho Directors have always instructed their Enginoor to co-operate
with the local autherities as far as it is possible so to do, in giving the
best supply in the poor districts, and with this view a draw-off tap is
recommended to be placod on the rising pipe to enable consumers to
obtain wator direct from the main, but there is a general disinclination
among the owners of the smaller houses in the East-end to do anything
that will conduce to the health or well-being of their tenants if the
vory slightest expenso is occasioned thereby."
In this roport Sir Francis Bolton, the Water Examiner for the
metropolis, remarks:—
Waste-pipes from cisterns are still to be found which are in direct communication
with drains, so that gases may flow back into the cisterns and become absorbed by
the water. To prevent this an overflow-pipe should be brought outside each house
and the end left exposed to the air instead of being carried into a drain, as is often
the case. By the adoption of this plan poisonous effluvia and gases from drains will
be got rid of, which would otherwise ascend through the pipe and not only be partly
absorbed by the water in cisterns, but be mixed with the air in the houses, thereby
becoming a cause of disease.