Water Conservation BY AN'ali'ek MlC'l lloh, C. K. Y.ALE rNIVEUSITV PItESS M/3 Cornell University Library TD 345.M13 Conservation of water. 3 1924 004 011 296 (!l0rneU Hniucratty Hibrarg 3tl)aca, New ^orfe BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 whei) this Tolume was taken. ok CO] the] Bok copy the call No. and give to i lit^arian. .. HOME USE RULES AU books subject to recall All borrowers must regis- .. ter in the library to borrow books for home use. All books must be re- ' turned at end of college year for inspection and ■ my 1 ^i 1005 T'^; Limited books mjist be returned within the four week limit and not renewed. Students must return all books before leaving town. Officers should arrange for the return of boots wanted during their absence from town. Volumes of periodicals and of pamphlets are held in the library as much as ' possible. For special pur- poses they are given out for a limited time. Borrowers ^ould not use their library privileges for the benefit of other persons. r ^ Books of special value and gift bookst when the giver wishes it, are not allowed to circulate. Readers are asked to re- port all cases of books marked or Mutilated. Do not deface books by marks and writinc. m Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924004011296 CHESTER S. LYMAN LECTURES CONSERVATION OF WATER POBTACE KaI.I.S, GkNKSEK RiVEH — NoRMAL WlNTUll CONDITION The flow in summer is 100 cubic feet per second CONSERVATION OF WATER By WALTER McCULLOH, C. E. ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN THE CHESTER S. LYMAN LECTURE SERIES, 1912, BEFORE THE SENIOR CLASS OF THE SHEF- FIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL, YALE UNIVERSITY NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MCMXIII 1^ ^L :in c> (o COPYRIGHT, 1913 BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS First printed September, 1913. 750 copies THE CHESTER S. LYMAN LECTURESHIP FUND The Chester S. Lj'man Lectureship Fund was established in 1910 through a gift to the Board of Trustees of the Shef- field Scientific School by Chester W. L3-man, Yale College, 1882, in memory of his father, the late Professor Chester S. Lyman, for many years Professor of Physics and Astronomy in the Sheffield Scientific School. The income of this" fund, according to the terms of the gift, is used for maintaining a course of lectures in the Sheffield Scientific School on the sub- ject of Water Storage Conservation. The present volume constitutes the first of the series of memorial lectures. CONTENTS Facie Chapter I. Introductory 1 Chapter II. Basic Data essential to a comprehensive study of water storage 13 Chapter III. Water Power 35 Chapter IV. Water Storage for Water Supplies, Sanitation and Irrigation 53 Chapter V. Water Resources of New York State 74< LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Portage Falls, Genesee River Frontispiece Page Stream Gauging Station 24 Typical Hydrographs Run Off 28 Hudson River Crossing 32 Status of Water Power in the United States 38 Status of Development in Water Power States 44 Tj'pical River Discharge at Alpha (Yearly) 46 Typical River Discharge Curves (Daily) 47 Stoppage of Water Waste in Washington, D. C. 68 Amounts of Water Used in the Nine Largest Cities of the United States 66 Effect of Meters on Water Consumption 68 ^^^atershed Limits of New York State Rivers 78 Water Power of New York State Streams 80 Water Power Growth and Development of New York State 81 Hydraulic Power Co. , Niagara Falls 82 Hydraulic Power Co., Generator Equipment 82 Niagara Falls Power Co. , Exterior Power House No. 2 82 Niagara Falls Power Co. , Interior Power House No. 2 82 Map of Niagara River 84 Canadian Niagara Power Co. 84 Toronto Power Co., Ltd. 85 Hydraulic Power Co. , Section of Station No. 3 86 Ontario Power Co. 86 Lines of Equal Rainfall in New York State 86 Flow Hydrographs of New York State Streams 89 Hannawa Falls Dam, Raquette River (2 views) 90 Portage Falls, Genesee River 90 Typical Genesee Flood 90 Genesee River at Geneseo 90 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Genesee Falls, Rochester 90 Power Percentage of Time Curves of the Genesee River at Rochester 92 Hudson River at Hadley 94 Hudson River at Glens Falls 94 Power Percentage of Time Curves of the Hudson River at Spier Falls 96 Raquette Pond, Raquette River 98 Tupper Lake, Raquette River 100 Oxbow, Raquette River 100 Piercefield Dam, Raquette River 100 Colton Falls, Raquette River 100 CONSERVATION OF WATER CHAPTER I Three predominant elements make life possible on this planet — sunlight, air and water — and while we have only a limited control over them, we are permitted to take advantage of their benefits and to make them minister to the needs of mankind. The sunlight may be, and too often is, shut out of the lives and homes of the people in our cities by high buildings, narrow streets or underground work- ings ; the air is vitiated by smoke and factory fumes, and the water is polluted by sewage and other wastes of municipal and manu- facturing activities. Such conditions have existed for generations and are still tolerated with but feeble protests, until the growth of communities or some scourge of disease awakens the people to the realization that these things need not, and should not, continue. A new era has dawned and the cry has gone forth to conserve our natural resources for the protection and enjoyment of human life — the greatest of all resources. The demand is being pressed for pure air to breathe in the home, in the shop and in all places where people congregate; for the sunlight to be let in to give strength and life and joy, and for pure and wholesome water for our domestic needs. We must have fresh air and sunlight and pure water to make a healthy people. With these we have effective weapons with which to fight the great white plague and to battle more successfully against the scourge of typhoid fever and other 2 CONSERVATION OF WATER deadly maladies which annually reap a rich harvest of valuable lives. These demands of the people are but the striving of human- ity for its inherent right to live healthy, happy and useful lives, and upon the realization of this right depends the life of the individual, the community and the nation. The now popular demand for the enjoyment of these God-given rights has crystallized into a move- ment for the conservation of natural resoui'ces — for, in the last analysis, conservation is in fact the benefit of human lives. In the course of lectures which we are to present to you, we shall consider onlj' water, as a resource for power, for sanitation, irrigation and domestic water supplies. At the outset, let us define conservation in the sense in which it will be used in these lectures and in which we desire that you should understand our meaning. The dictionary defines conserva- tion as "the act of keeping or preserving from loss or injury." This definition, applied to our natural resources, means not only pres- ervation and protection for the future, but also the wise and economic utilization in the present. This view of conservation was put very tersely and clearly by President Taft in his annual mes- sage to Congress in 1909, in the following words: "There has developed in recent years a deep concern in the public mind respecting the preservation and proper use of our natural resources. This has been particularly directed toward the conservation of the resources of the pubHc domain. The problem is how to save and how to utilize ; how to conserve and still develop ; for no sane person can contend that it is for the common good that nature's blessings are only for unborn generations." It is this conception of the conservation of our vast water resovu'ces that we would have you receive. The conservation movement contemplates the accomplishment of the preservation and utilization of our natural resources and calls upon all of us to stop and give heed to the vital necessity for some decisive, constructive action, to the end that we may no longer squander our inheritance in the rich bounties of the earth. It is inevitable and should be recognized from the start, that in this CONSERA'ATION OF WATER 3 movement, as in all great undertakings, there must be of necessity many diverse opinions. There are and always will be, extremists on both sides of the question, but the vast majority, through igno- rance, or worse, indifference, are without any opinion whatever on the subject. Engineers and other scientific men, with the business men and the statesmen, must take their stand in the front ranks of the conservation movement and by presenting hard facts, reli- able data and wise plans, assist in directing the people to conclusions and actions which will inure to the public welfare. The engineer will be called upon to give to this subject his close study and mature judgment and his common sense and wise counsel, to assist in the solution of the problems which will be presented to him; and he must use his best skill in the endeavor to hai-monize the discords in opinion and bring the extremists nearer together. While the condition of widely separated opinions prevails with regard to all matters relat- ing to natural resources, it is eminentl^^ true at the present time relative to the conservation of water. In this regard, great prog- ress toward the desired end has been made in the past ten years. The indispensableness of water to every form of active life on the earth has been a recognized fact since the foundation of the human race, yet people must ever be reminded of the necessity to protect and preserve this priceless resource of nature, for their own good and for those who are to live after them. Two of the fundamental elements of life previously referred to enter into the process by which this never-ceasing blessing of nature is perpetuated. The heat of the sun vaporizes and raises the water into the atmosphere from the surface of sea and lake, and the movements of the air, directed by the wind currents, carry the vapor over the land into cooler air strata, where condensation takes place and the water is precipitated in the form of rain or snow. The mountain brooks collect that portion of the rainfall which is not taken up by the earth, vegetation and evaporation and pass it down to the rivers as they flow back to the sea. Perpetual motion, guided by the hand of nature, would seem to have been accom- plished in this continuous action of the water. To the inhabitants 4 CONSERVATION OF WATER of the earth is given the privilege and problem of making the best possible use of this abundant resource, to protect it from pollution and waste, and to make it do man's bidding for man's benefit and the enjoyment of life. Some idea of the extent to which water is a resource of the world, may be gained from the following facts: The latest avail- able figures from geographers show that about 70 per cent of the earth's surface is covered with water, and it is estimated with reasonable accuracy that of the land area only 8 per cent is desert and subject to little or no precipitation of moisture. Over the balance of the earth's surface the rains fall with more or less regu- larity, varying in amount from 2 inches annually at Port Said, Egypt, to 610 inches annually at Cherapongee, Assam, India. At the latter point, in 1891, occurred the highest annual rainfall on record, amounting to 920 inches. The average annual rainfall over the face of the earth is estimated to be 36 inches. In the United States the average annual rainfall is practically that of the average of the world, but it varies from 3 inches per year at Yuma, Arizona, to 62 inches per year at Mobile, Alabama. It is a well-known fact that all the principal streams of this country are subject to periodical freshets and depletions of more or less severity, and that at irregular intervals of five, ten or fifteen years, imusual or extreme floods occur. Such floods carry into the valleys great quantities of dirt and debris, depositing them over the flat lands, or in the streets and roads of settled communities, thereby creating a menace to the health and lives of the people, as well as causing damage to property and losses to agriculture and manufacturing industry. Whenever such disastrous floods occur, a corresponding flood of complaints and appeals pours in upon the state and local authorities, accompanied b}' pleas for relief. At such times claims are urged that someone, or some official body, should have or be given adequate power to control the situation and prevent the recurrence of such disasters. What is true of the rivers of this countrj^ is equally true of the rivers of Europe and, in fact, of the whole world, but the problems involved are only just CONSERVATION OF AVATER 5 beginning to be satisfactorily solved in the United States. The countries of Europe are, perhaps, a little in advance of us in this matter, but we are rapidly catching up to them. The principal problems to be solved in this great national issue are: (a) Can the flow of rivers be regulated and floods prevented or controlled and (b), if so, by whom and through what instru- mentality shall the control and, regulation be effected? In this course of lectures, we shall endeavor to present the more important questions involved in the solution of these problems, and to discuss some of the proposed methods of procedure suggested by those who have given study to the subject. We shall discuss, also, the benefits to be derived by individuals, municipalities and corpora- tions from a proper regulation of the flow of streams. The con- cluding lecture will relate to the water resources in the State of New York, as a concrete example of what can or might be done to accomplish the practical conservation of water resources. Vast amounts of public moneys have been devoted by federal and state authorities to investigations of floods and droughts and much technical study has been given to their causes and effects, but the campaign of constructive action may be said to be only just started in America. All of the investigations and studies on the subject of water conservation and stream flow regulation have led to one and the same conclusion, namely: That the construction of storage reservoirs, scientifically located and operated, is the most effective and the only practical method of controlling the flood waters and of increasing the flow of the streams during the summer droughts. There is a well-established popular belief that floods and droughts are directly due, in a very large measure, to the cutting away of the forests on the hillsides and that reforestation would cor- rect the damage already done, prevent the annual floods and mate- rially increase the rainfall at the usual seasons of droughts. While it is undoubtedly true that the forest cover does have some beneficial effect upon the run-off after rainfalls have occurred, it is, how- ever, not true that the forest would take the place of storage reser- 6 CONSERVATION OF WATER voirs as an adequate and effectual means of stream flow regulation. The effect of the forest is to retard the run-off by presenting bar- riers to a rapid flow of the water over the surface of the ground. Every tree trunk or fallen limb or dead stump presents an obstacle in the paths of the tiny streamlets as they flow down the hillside to the brooks, and the shelter of the trees affords a more uniform deposit of the snowfall and protects the snows against sudden melt- ing in the springtime. Each of these conditions in its own way affords a better opportunity for the water to be absorbed by the ground mould and underlying porous earth. The earth, acting as does a sponge, absorbs and holds large quantities of water, which, obedient to the laws of gravitation, gradually flow through the soil to the low points in the valley and eventually find an outlet in springs and rills. The water absorbed by the earth does not amount, on the average, to more than 50 per cent of the precipitation. Of the other half of the rainfall, about 40 per cent finds its way into the streams and flows back towards the sea, while the remaining 10 per cent is taken up by evaporation and the vegetable growth. These natural actions have some effect in mitigating the severity of fresh- ets and increasing the flow of the streams in the summer periods; but there are no authentic or reliable data at hand to show that the forests do increase the amount of precipitation. On the other hand, it has been shown with a reasonable degree of reliability that precipi- tation upon any section of the country is directly due to the geo- graphical position with regard to large bodies of water, the prevail- ing direction of the wind and the altitude of the territory upon which the precipitation occurs. For example: In the Adirondack region in the northern part of New York State occurs the greatest annual precipitation in that state. The situation of this territory is imme- diately east of the Great Lakes, and the prevailing winds passing over lakes Erie and Ontario carrj^ moisture to the higher altitudes of the mountains and there deposit the rain and snow. In this region, we have records of the extreme rainfalls for the state. Immediately to the east of the Adirondack Mountains, along the west shore of Lake Champlain, there is an area of low rainfall. CONSERVATION OF WATER 7 from which we reason that the suspended moisture in the air has been deposited on the hills, and the winds, when they reach the eastern side of the mountains are comparatively dry. Over this entire territory the forest cover is substantially the same, with perhaps the exception that, on the westerly side of the mountains beyond the foothills, the forests have been practically cut away and the land devoted to agricultural uses. The Rocky Mountains pro- duce the same effect as the Adirondacks, but on a larger scale. The winds blowing inland from the Pacific deposit the rain and snow upon the high altitudes of the mountains, then pass further inland with comparative dryness over large territories of arid lands and so-called deserts. We do not argue from the foregoing facts that forest protec- tion is not necessary, or that reforestation is not desirable ; but we do maintain that these two proposed remedies will not prove adequate as a conservative measure with regard to water. Conclusive evi- dence is to be found in the geological formation of the valleys that floods have occurred through all the ages, even though the virgin forests covered the face of the land. Forest protection is a vital issue and of great public concern and reforestation should be fostered and urged for the sake of the forests themselves, and advantage should be taken of such benefits as may acrue from them in the conservation of water resources. More complete investigations than have hitherto been made are greatly needed to establish the relationship between forest cover and rainfall and run-off, and altitude and rainfall. The federal government, in the Appalachian investigations, has undertaken the task of determining the relationship which forests bear to rain- fall and stream flow through the eastern section of the United States. The results of these investigations will be awaited with interest by engineers and all persons concerned in the conservation of water and the forests. Through the creation and scientific operation of storage reser- voirs, and through this means onlj^, will the true conservation of water be accomplished. The floods which otherwise would run to 8 CONSERVATION OF WATER waste or pass unused for power and industrial purposes or cause damage and loss, would be restrained and impounded, to be grad- ually released during those months of the year in which every cubic foot of water can be put to use for municipal water supplies, for the generation of power, the improvement of the sanitary condition of the streams, or the assistance of navigation. Assuming, then, that the creation of storage reservoirs will furnish a practical solu- tion of the water conservation problem, we may take up the ques- tion : By whom, or by what authority, shall these reservoirs be con- structed, owned and operated; by whom shall the expense of such improvements be borne — and who, if any, of the beneficiaries, either individuals or corporations, private or municipal, should pay for the benefits received by them as a direct result of the creation of the reservoirs and the regulation of the streams upon which they are situated? The government of the United States, through the reclamation service, has taken up a part of this problem and is solving it with regard to the storage of water for irrigation of the larger arid terri- tories, and for the prevention of floods; but so far, all the work accomplished relates to the public lands. It is obvious that none but the federal government should have authority to construct and control such storage and reclamation projects. It is equally obvious that streams which are situated wholly within one state should be under the jurisdiction of that state; but in the case of an interstate stream, or an interstate boundary stream along which there lies no public land, it is not so clear as to the authority which should have final control. There are many cases where one state suffers the consequences of floods from an adjoining state, while the latter, in which the stream has its source, is spared from such damage. It would then not be proper to put the one state to the expense of creating storage for the benefit of an adjoining one; nor could the suffering state properly undertake to build public works in a territorjr over which it has no jursidiction. Under such circum- stances the federal government should have the power to control or arbitrate the situation, determining the benefits accruing to each CONSERVATION OF WATER 9 of the states interested and exacting from them proper compensa- tion for the relative benefit which each state receives. For the five years last past, the proposition of governmental control of water power streams has been agitating the public mind and in some quarters much strife has arisen over the matter. Out of it all has grown the necessity for a number of investigations by federal or state authorities. Commissions have been created in at least five states to investigate water resource conditions and the conditions relating to floods and water supplies and water powers. In some of the states, two or more commissions have been created — each to consider a different branch of the subject. These commis- sions havei^een given power and authority to investigate all of the conditions relating to water resources, especially with regard to the conservation of water for the improvement or creation of water power. They have been directed to formulate plans, or a scheme, for the control of water rights owned either privately or by the nation or the state. Much valuable information and data have been accumulated and recorded in the reports of these commissions. In the investigations and the formulations of plans which have been proposed for the conservation of water, they are all confronted with a situation which is difficult to overcome. The constitutional right of an owner of land to keep and enjoy his own property is involved in many of the water storage projects and this presents one of the greatest obstacles in the way of progress along the line of water conservation for any other use than domestic water supplies. This question may be stated as follows: Has the State the right and power to take private lands, against the will of the owner, for stream flow regulation by the creation of storage reservoirs or other hydraulic works ? Or, can the State delegate that power to an indi- vidual or a corporation holding or using water power rights on any stream under its jurisdiction? The federal and state constitutions provide that "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." The due process of law by which title to 10 CONSERVATION OF WATER lands is taken from an unwilling seller upon the payment of just compensation, is by the exercise of the right of eminent domain or condemnation, whereby lands may be acquired for a public use, and where the greatest good to the greatest number is the govern- ing principle. Land cannot be taken for water storage or hydraulic works against the will of an owner, unless the use to which the water is to be put is declared to be a public purpose within the meaning of the constitution. Until the storage of water for stream regu- lation is declared to be a public purpose, the public cannot exercise the right of eminent domain, without which right many a desirable water storage proposition would be rendered impossible of devel- opment. That water is an absolute necessitj^ to the life and material progress of the commonwealth, and that its conservation would be a great public benefit is undeniable, but the storage of water for anything other than municipal water supplies for domestic use and for navigation under the control of the government or state, has not been declared a public use; therefore, unless there is constitu- tional authority for acquiring private lands for the purpose of effecting storage, the owner of a small and insignificant parcel of land could successfully block the most desirable improvement, if he were unwilling to part with his holdings; or, one or more land owners could place so fictitious a value on land in the basin of a proposed reservoir as to make the price prohibitive and the project impracticable. Water required by a municipality for domestic uses is held to be a public purpose and consequently municipalities have been given authority to exercise the power to acquire lands by condemnation proceedings for the creation of reservoirs, the construction of dams, aqueducts and other works appurtenant to municipal water sup- plies. The State has the power to condemn lands for canals and navigation because of the public piu-pose to Avhich they are to be devoted. Many owners of water power, and some of our legislators, are now advancing the argument that the same right of condemnation CONSERVATION OF WATER 11 of land for storage reservoirs or for power developments should be granted to power companies, or owners of power rights, whether individual or corporate, and that the storage of water for flood control and the generation of power is a public purpose, especially when the power generated is to be converted into electricity and used for light, heat, manufacturing and transportation. This view seems reasonable and the argument has much merit in it, but the matter must receive most careful consideration before it can become an established law. Many years ago, when transportation was difficult and the steam-power mill was unknown, grist-mills and saw-mills operated by water power were absolute necessities in the communities which grew up around them. Under these circumstances, the State of Massachusetts and several other New England states enacted laws giving the right of condemnation for the flowage of lands for mill ponds, presumably upon the ground that the people of such com- munities depended upon grist-mills and saw-mills for their homes and their living; that the use of water power for grinding flour and grain for family and cattle, and the sawing of timber for the construction of their homes, was a public purpose. Grave ques- tions have been raised as to the constitutionalitj" of these laws, known as "The Mill Act," but the courts have sustained the law on the ground of expediency. The states of Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California have created State Commissions known as Water Supply Commissions, or Conservation Commissions, as a permanent department of state government and have placed under their jurisdiction matters pertaining to domestic water supplies, water storage and water power developments. Other states have this matter under consideration and in all probability many more will follow the example of those which have already created a water department. The development of the electric generator and the perfection of power transmission systems which have taken place in the last generation have made water power a valuable asset and have elimi- 12 CONSERVATION OF WATER nated the necessitj^ of locating the factory immediately at the site of the water power development. The energy of the waterfall, through the medium of electricity, may be delivered to the consumer at points far distant from the waterfall and be used for light, heat and power, which, under the economy of present-day life, have practically become public necessities in every thriving communitJ^ The energy of consolidated sunlight stored up in coal has here- tofore supplied these necessities through the medium of steam, but as the coal supply is diminished and the price of coal rises and we realize the enormous waste of power which results from the use of coal — even with our most modern boilers and high efficiencj^ engines — the value of its rival, water power, will become more apparent and men will seek the cheaper source of power which water furnishes. The coal deposits are limited and at the present rate of consumption the supply in this country will be exhausted in from seventy-five to one hundred years — so we are told by those who have devoted study to the subject. Water, the inexhaustible resource, has been, is now, and probably always will be, a dependable source of power, provided it is wisely conserved and economically used. The people of the land have been prodigal in the past use of their bountiful supply of natural resources. We have wasted much of our inheritance and if this waste is to stop and our resources are to be husbanded and conserved, the time to begin is now. Let the conservation of water be a live issue with us — and not merely a pleasant-sounding theory upon which magazine and newspaper writers may thrive. It is a large subject, of nation-wide impor- tance, in which the engineer has a conspicuous part to bear. He must measure up to his part or be left behind, for the movement is going forward and water conservation is going to be accomplished. CHAPTER II BASIC DATA ESSENTIAL TO A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE The feasibility of every project for the conservation of water must be determined upon economic, hydrographic, topographic and geologic data: the economic, to determine the necessity for stream flow regulation by the storage of its surplus waters; the hydro- graphic, to determine the amount of water to be controlled under natural conditions and what may be effected by such control; the topographic, to determine the nature and extent of the watershed and the location and availability of reservoir sites for water storage ; and the geologic to determine the practicability and safety of the sites selected for reservoir dams, embankments and other structures appurtenant thereto. Without such data, no water storage study can be made complete, and the value of the conclusions arrived at would be directly proportional to the accuracy of the data upon which the whole investigation rests. Economic Data The economical or commercial value of water conservation will depend upon the extent of the danger of losses resulting from the restricted or unrestricted flow of the particular stream under con- sideration, and the benefits which would result from regulation. It is obvious that the flood waters pouring through the valley of some mountain stream may have enormous power possibilities, and upon reaching the lowlands may inundate large areas of fertile land; but if there is no market for the water power, or if the flooded lands 14 CONSERVATION OF WATER are not under cultivation, there is no present, determinable value to the unused power, nor is there any real damage done to the lands which are flooded. On the other hand, the same volume of water issuing from the hill country of New England may cause a damage to cultivated lands and to municipalities to the extent of thousands of dollars, and at the same time the wasted water power would have a value double or treble the amount of damage done. In the latter case, the need for and the value of water storage is apparent and is a positive fact, while in the former no such fact exists at the present time. Investigation made in the matter of damage done by floods must cover the items of property losses, the effect upon the public health and safety, and whether or not disease and death follow as a direct result of the flood. The investigation must also ascertain whether there are any municipalities depending upon the stream for the domestic water supplies, and whether these supplies will be depleted or may become polluted and thereby made a menace to the public welfare. It should further determine whether there are manufactories or power plants situated on the banks of the stream depending upon the water for their operating power, and to which the floods and the succeeding dearth of water are the cause of direct financial loss to all parties concerned — the mill or power owner, the operatives, employees and the business communities in which the plants are situated. If all of these questions, or a major- ity of them, can be answered in the affirmative, the necessity for stream flow regulation in that particular watershed is thereby established. Next to establishing the fact of necessity, there must be deter- mined the amount or value of that necessity expressed in dollars. The value of protection against flood damage and danger is depend- ent upon the size of the community affected, the extent to which the floods endanger the public health and safety, the nature and extent of the tillable land which is flooded or its value reduced. The value of the water power will depend upon the cost of its development as compared with the cost of producing the same amount of power A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 15 with coal, for coal and falling water are the two great sources of industrial power, and are inseparably related to each other. The extent to which the unregulated flow of the stream can be depended upon for power and the nature of the industries in which the power is, or may be, used, must be taken into consideration as well; that is to say, the extent and kind of power market that is open for the product of the waterfall. A paper mill, consuming large blocks of power for grinding pulpwood and employing but few men per horse power, does not stand in the same class as a cotton mill using less power but employing many more hands, but it may sustain as heavy a loss from the lack of water. An economic survey of the situation is one of the first steps to be taken in investigations for water conservation; and the survey should not be confined to the narrow limits of the watershed in ques- tion, but should take in a much wider territory, limited only by the proportions of the stream and the distance to which electric power can be economically transmitted in such amounts as the river can furnish. ' In obtaining data for an economic survey, two methods are usually followed: ' (a) Original investigations on the ground, by competent engi- neers and investigators. (b) Letters of inquiry to mill owners, municipal officers and individuals, covering the specific information desired. State and municipal boards often follow the latter method, while private interests adopt the former. The experience of the writer has been that the former method of personal inspection is the only positive one of obtaining reliable data and effecting a saving of time in doing so. The expense will be greater, but the additional expense is more than justified by the accuracy of the data obtained and the time saved in obtaining them. A list of questions will nat- urally be designed to cover all situations, and may have on it a num- ber of questions which the manufacturer, power owner or municipal officer either cannot or will not answer. The questions which are answered are frequently slighted or inaccurately replied to, all 16 CONSERVATION OF WATER of which leaves the investigator in a quandary, and if he is care- ful and accurate, his suspicions are immediately aroused as to the reliability of the data upon which he expects to base his judgment. Hydeographic Data The hydrographic data needed in the study of water storage problems include rainfall, run-off and evaporation. In his report to the New York State Water Supply Commis- sion in 1908, Mr. John R. Freeman, consulting engineer, empha- sizes the importance of this branch of water storage investigation in the following words: "Accurate measurements of the stream flow or run-off and of the precipi- tations to determine the water yield of a given territory, are the indispensable preliminaries to all study of regulation by water storage, and constitute the foundation of the entire structure of computations and estimates which determine in every case to what extent the construction of reservoirs can be justified on engineering and economic grounds." The United States Geological Survey and the Weather Bureau have collected and compiled valuable data which are pub- lished in the reports and other documents of these two departments, but such data should be carefully verified and augmented by inde- pendent investigations wherever possible. While the government departments use every effort to obtain most reliable data, it must be apparent that, with the limited amount of appropriations as com- pared with the vast area of the country to be covered, the same amount of detail study cannot be given to each individual watershed as would be given by a state or a private interest making a specific investigation. Much of the government work by the Geographical Survey has been done in co-operation with state departments, each bearing a portion of the expense of establishing and maintaining rainfall and stream gage stations. Much of this data is accurate and very valuable, but it is regrettable that some of the published records are not so reliable, for the reason that the records have not been kept A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 17 continuously so as to show an unbroken record of years; and also because the necessity for accurate stream flow records in particular localities was not recognized as of much importance until within the past twenty years. The rapid advance made in the generation and utilization of water power through hydro-electric developments has greatly increased the demand for accurate, continuous records on the principal streams of the country and has emphasized the shortcomings of the earlier records, which were sufficiently accurate to meet the requirements of the times when they were taken. The inhabited area of the United States is well covered with observation stations under the direction of the Weather Bureau, which furnish general information as to the precipitation and other meteorological phenomena, but the individual states should estab- lish independent stations at more numerous points than it is possible or feasible for the national government to maintain. It is frequently found in such watersheds as the Hudson River and the Connecticut that there is a wide variation in the amounts of dependable annual rainfall in different sections of the same watershed. It therefore becomes necessary to study each water- shed as a unit and establish rain-gaging stations throughout the watershed, selecting the locations in accordance with local conditions of altitude, forest cover, topographic formations, etc. The location for a rain-gaging station should be selected with great care, so that it may correctly represent an average of a certain limited portion of the watershed ; and the surroundings of the station play a very important part in the accuracy and value of the records. The rules and regulations for the establishment of observation sta- tions promulgated by the United States departments are such as one can well afford to follow. Rainfall The instruments of a rainfall gaging station are the rain gage, maximum and minimum thermometers, and thermometer shelter. There are four principal types of rain gages which have been used 18 CONSERVATION OF WATER since the establishment of gaging stations, viz., the Fuertes, the DeWitt, the Smithsonian and the U. S. Weather Bureau Stand- ard. The latter has been evolved from the experience of a number of years' observations and in its design there have been embodied the best features of all the methods heretofore used. The standard rain gage of the U. S. Weather Bureau is made up of three principal parts — the receiver, the measuring tube and the overflow tube. The receiver is an open cylindrical basin 8 inches in diameter, with a funnel-shaped bottom which conducts to the measuring tube, placed below it, the rain falling within the area of the receiver opening. The measuring tube is 2.53 inches in diameter and 20 inches high, its area being one-tenth that of the opening of the receiver. The overflow tube, or can, is a cylinder 8 inches in diameter and 24 inches high, in the center of which the measuring tube is placed, and upon which the receiver forms a close- fitting cover. Rain falling into the opening of the receiver passes through the funnel into the measuring tube, and, in the event of the rainfall being greater than the contents of the measuring tube, the excess is collected in the overflow can and may be measured sepa- rately in the measuring tube. One inch depth of water in the measuring tube represents a precipitation of one-tenth of an inch — the proportion between the area of the receiver and the area of the measuring tube. The depth of the water in the measuring tube is gaged with a light cedar stick, graduated to represent inches and tenths, one inch of the graduation being equal to one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. The location and exposure of a rain gage is of utmost impor- tance and great care must be exercised in selecting a site for an observation station. The gage should be placed in an open space away from the direct sweep of high winds, yet not so sheltered by lai'ge trees or buildings as to be in the path of unusual wind currents. It should be placed with the top about three feet above the ground. The wind is, perhaps, the greatest source of error in rain gage records : two gages set not fifty feet apart, one carefully and the other carelessly exposed, may show a variation of 25 per cent in A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 19 recording the precipitation of the same rainstorm. Gages are sometimes exposed on roofs of buildings, but this should never be done, except on a flat roof, and when no better place can be secured. Care must be taken in this event to protect the gage from the shelter of chimneys or other obstructions which would cause eddy- ing of the winds, thereby drawing into the gage an inaccurate amount of water. When gages are placed near the ground care must be taken to guard against their being interfered with by persons and animals. The measurement of snowfall, expressed in its equivalent of liquid precipitation, is an important part of rainfall records, and is liable to considerable error unless the observer uses great care in making the observations and measurements. For snowfall meas- urement, the overflow tube of the gage only is exposed and the amount of snow caught in the tube is melted and then measured in the measuring tube as is done with rainfall. Temperature records are taken by maximum and minimum thermometers, one recording the highest temperature of the daj^, the other the lowest temperature. In obtaining temperature records, it is very essential that the thermometers be placed in such a position as to record accurately the temperature of the free atmos- phere. If placed against the side of a building, or in the direct rays of the sun, or between buildings in a draft or air, the records will not be accurate. For the purpose of placing thermometers in the most ideal situation possible, a thermometer shelter has been designed, consisting of a box, two or three feet square, having vanes or slats in three sides, and a tight, waterproof top. The vanes permit the air to circulate freely through the shelter box and the tight cover protects the instruments from rain and the direct rays of the sun. These shelters are placed upon a standard, raising them about five feet above the surface of the ground ; or, if placed against the side of a building, as is sometimes done, they are fastened to strips of wood which will hold them awaj^ from the building and permit a free circulation of air. 20 CONSERVATION OF WATER Observations for rainfall and temperature should be made daily at the same hour of the day, preferably eight o'clock in the morning, and the record should show the maximum and minimum tempera- ture and the precipitation of the previous twenty-four hours. It is sometimes advisable, in the event of a very severe rainstorm, to determine the exact amount of precipitation within a given time, in which case the amount of water in the tube is measured at the end of the storm, but it is left until the end of the twenty-four hour period. In the summers of 1908 and 1909, a series of tests was made at Cornell University with a view to ascertaining the relative accuracy of the various types of rain gages used in obtaining the earlier rain- fall records. Two reproductions were made of each of the three types of older gages — the DeWitt, the Fuertes and the Smithso- nian — and placed in the same locality in comparison with the U. S. stardard gages. One set of gages was placed about three feet above the ground, and the other set upon a raised platform twelve feet above the ground. The results of this series of tests, using the U. S. gage as a standard, showed as follows: Of those placed near the ground, the DeWitt gage recorded 5.6 per cent short; the Fuertes, 3.12 per cent short; the Smithsonian, 3.39 per cent short. Of the set elevated above the ground, the DeWitt recorded 9.3 per cent short; the Fuertes, 2.15 per cent short, and the Smithsonian, .5 per cent long. While these results are interesting in showing the relationship between the present-day standard and the gages with which former records were made, they do not form a scientific basis for the comparison of the records of former years with the records of today, for the reason that information is frequently lacking in the old records with regard to the exposure of the gages, and there is no wajr of determining the personal equation of the observer. Many observations were made by persons without any proper conception of the importance of their work, while others were made by those thoroughly interested in the work and careful to observe all details of correct observations. A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 21 RxjN-Orr Data for the determination of the run-off or discharge of streams are obtained primarily by observation in the field and com- pleted in the office by computations. In the following description of the method of collecting and preparing stream flow data, refer- ence has been had to, and quotations are made from, the Hydro- graphic Manual of the United States Geological Survey Water Supply Papers No. 94, and other Water Supply papers of that department. Three distinct methods of determining the flow of open stream channels are in use: (1) By measurements of slope and cross section and the use of Chezy's and Kutter's formulas; (2) by means of weir measurements; (3) by measurements of the velocity of the current and the area of the cross sections of the stream. The method to be chosen for any case must depend upon local physical conditions, the degree of accuracy desired, and the length of time the record is to be continued. Slope Measurements: The results obtained by the slope method are, in general, only roughly approximate, owing to the difficulty in obtaining accurate data and the uncertainty of the value for 'n,' the coefficient of roughness, to be used in Kutter's formula. This method is in common use in estimating the flood discharge of streams, when the only data available are the cross section and the slope of the water surface as shown by marks along the banks. Weir Measurements: The weir method may be used when the conditions are such that sharp-crested weirs can be erected, or where dams are suitably situated and constructed. The use of the sharp-crested weir is the best method for small streams. The conditions necessary to insure good results at dams are: (1) those relating to the physical characteristics of the dam itself, and (2) those relating to the diversion and use of water around and through the dam. The physical requirements are : (a) Sufficient height of dam so that back water will not interfere with the free fall over it. (b) Absence of leaks of appreciable magnitude in the dam. 22 CONSERVATION OF WATER (c) Topography or abutments which confine the flow over the dam at high stages of the water. (d) The level crest which can be kept free from obstructions, such as floating logs and ice. (e) A crest of a type for which the coefficients in some standard weir formula are known. Preferabl}^ there should be no diversion of water through or around a dam if it is to be used for stream flow gaging, but as dams are generally con- structed for the purpose of power development or navigation, part of the water flowing past them is diverted for such uses. This water must, of course, be measured and added to that passing over the dam in order to obtain accurate records, and in order to insure accuracy in such determina- tions, the amount of water diverted should be reasonably constant. Further- more, it should be so diverted that it can be measured, either through turbine wheels which are of a standard make and have been scientifically rated under working conditions, or located in such a way that the tail water can be measured by either a weir or a current meter. When all conditions are favorable for stream flow measurements at a dam, it is also essential to have the co-operation of the owners or operators of the plant, if reliable results are to be obtained. In making flow determinations at dams during extreme low or high stages great care must be exercised in the use of the selected formula because of the uncertainty that exists as to the proper values of the coefficients for these stages. Velocity Mensureviertts: The determination of the quantity of water flowing past a certain section of a stream at a given time is termed a dis- charge measurement. This quantity is the product of two factors — the mean velocity of flow and the area of the cross section. The mean velocity is a function of surface slope, wetted perimeter, roughness of bed, and the channel conditions at, above, and below the gaging section. The area depends on the contour of the stream bed and the flunctuations of the water surface. The two principal methods of determining the velocity of a stream are by floats and by current meters. Great care must be taken in the selection and equipment of gaging stations for determining the discharge by the velocity method, in order that the data obtained may have the required degree of accuracy. Their essential requirements are practically the same, whether the velocity is determined by meters or floats. They are located. A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 23 as far as possible, where the channel is straight both above and below the gaging section ; where there are no cross currents, backwater or eddies ; where the bed of the stream is reasonably free from large projections or boulders, and where the banks are high and subject to overflow only at flood stages, if at all. Gaging stations are usually established at a bridge, if conditions are favorable, but if not, at some convenient point where a cable can be suspended across the flow of the stream. The usual equipment of a permanent gaging station for determining the fluctuations of the water level is a bench mark to which the datum of gage is referred, and a gage fixed at the side of the stream, graduated in feet and tenths, and of sufficient height to indicate the extreme low and extreme high water levels. When the station is equipped with a cable, the equipment consists of a suspended steel cable supported on towers, or from available trees, a car or basket on trolley wheels running on the cable and in which the observer sits while making the meter measurements, a bench mark and a gage. Suspended over the cable is a smaller wire, upon which has previously been marked off the divisions or stations under which the current measurements are to be made. Plate 1 illustrates a typical stream-gaging station with cable equipment. In measuring velocity by a float, observation is made of the time con- sumed by the float in passing over the "run," a selected stretch of the river from 50 to 200 feet in length. In each discharge measurement, a large number of velocity determinations should be made at diff'erent points across the stream, and from these observations the mean velocity for the whole section is determined. The floats in common use are the surface, sub-sur- face and tube floats. A corked bottle with a flag in the top, and weighted, makes one of the most satisfactory surface floats, as it is affected but little by wind. The sub-surface and tube float are intended to give directly the mean velocity of the flow in the thread of the stream in which it is submerged. The essential parts of the standard current meter are a wheel made of buckets and so constructed that the impact of the flowing water causes it to revolve, and a device for recording or indicating the number of revolu- tions made by the wheel. The meter must be calibrated before using, which is done by drawing the instrument through still water for a given distance at different speeds. From the results thus obtained, a rating table for the meter is prepared which gives the velocity per second for any number of revolutions. The indicating device is usually electrically connected, either o k h^ ^ Co UJ 5; Q o ^ :d o o- ^ . k >^ v^. "^ A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 25 with a bell or to a counting device, and the time is taken with a stop watch. Current meter measurements may be made from a bridge, a cable station, a boat or by wading; in any case, the method of obtaining the mean velocity is practically the same. In making the measurements, an arbitrary number of points are laid off on a line perpendicular to the thread of the stream. The points at which the velocity and speed are observed are known as measuring points, and are usually fixed at regular intervals varying from 2 to 20 feet, depending upon the size and condition of the stream. Perpendiculars dropped from the measuring points divide the gaging section into imaginary strips. For each strip, or pair of strips, the mean velocity, area and discharge are determined independently, so that conditions prevailing in one part of the stream may not be extended to and affect other parts where they do not apply. Three methods of measuring velocity with the current meter are in general use — multiple-point, single-point and integration. There are two principal multiple-point methods in general use : The vertical velocity-curve and the 0.2 and 0.8 depth. In the vertical velocity-curve method, a series of velocity determina- tions is made in each vertical at regular intervals, usually from one-half to one foot apart. By plotting these velocities as abscissas and their depths as ordinates, and drawing a smooth curve among the resulting points, the vertical velocity-curve is developed. This curve shows graphically the magni- tude and changes in velocity from the surface to the bottom of the stream. The mean velocity in the vertical is obtained by dividing the area bounded by this velocity-cur\'e and its axis by the depth. In the second multiple-point method the velocity is determined suc- cessively at 0.2 and 0.8 of the depth, and the mean velocity at these two points is taken as the mean for that vertical. Actual observations under a wide range of conditions show that this second multiple-point method gives the mean velocity very closely for open-water conditions. The single-point method consists in holding the meter either at the depth of the thread of mean velocity, or at an arbitrary depth for which the coefficient for reducing to mean velocity has previously been determined. Extensive experiments by vertical velocity-curves show that the thread of mean velocity generally occurs at from 0.5 to 0.7 of the total depth. In general practice, the thread of mean velocity is considered to be at 0.6 depth, 26 CONSERVATION OF WATER at which point the meter is held in the majority of the single-point measure- ments. The vertical integration method consists in moving the meter at a slow, uniform speed from the surface to the bottom and back to the surface, and noting the number of revolutions and the time taken in the operation. This method has the advantage that the velocity at each point of the vertical is measured twice. It is also useful as a check on the point methods. The area of the gaging section, which is the other factor in the velocity method of determining the discharge of a stream, depends on the stage of the river and the contour of the bed and sides of the stream. The former is observed on the gage, and the latter is determined by a series of soundings or levels, usually taken at each measuring point at the time of taking the discharge measurements. The first step in determining the run-off from the field records is the construction of a rating table, showing the discharge corresponding tO' any stage of the stream. The rating table is applied to the record of stage to determine the amount of water flowing at the time the record was taken. For a weir or dam station, the basis for the rating table is some standard weir formula, the coefiicient to be used in its application depending upon the type of the dam and other conditions near its crest. The rating table for a "velocity-area" station is constructed from the results of the discharge meas- urements which include the record of the stage of the river at the time of each measurement, the area of the cross section, the mean velocity of the current, and the quantity of water flowing. A thorough knowledge of the conditions at the station and in the vicinity is also necessary in the con- struction of a rating table. The construction of a rating table depends upon the following laws of flow for open permanent channels: (1) The discharge will remain constant so long as conditions at or near the gaging station remain constant. (2) The discharge will be the same whenever the stream is at a given stage if the change of slope due to the rise and fall of the stream- be neglected. (3) The discharge is a function of, and increases gradually with, the stage. The plotting of results of the various discharge measure- ments, using gage heights as ordinates, and discharge, mean velocity and area as abscissas, will define curves which show the discharge, mean velocity and area corresponding to any gage height. As the discharge is the product of two factors, the area and the mean velocity, any change in either factor will necessarily produce a corresponding change in the discharge. A CO.MPREHENSn E STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 27 Stream flow data are tabulated for the following information : (1) Daily gage heights. (2) List of current meter discharge measurements. (3) Station rating table constructed from current meter measurements. (4) Daily discharge in cubic feet. (5) Monthly maximum, minimum and mean discharges in cubic feet. In applying these data to the study of streams, one must take into consideration the length of time during which the records have been kept ; if the duration of the records has been short, reasonably accurate estimates of the discharge may be interpolated by basing calculations upon the relationship between the stream in question and some other stream with similar physical watershed conditions, upon which long-time records are available and include the same period of time during which the records on the given stream were taken. Hydrographic data in a complete record for any given water- shed show the rainfall by days, months and years, from which may be determined the mean annual dependable rainfall, the run- off or the proportion of the rainfall which flows off in the stream by days, months, years, etc. The water yield of the catchment area in second feet per square mile, the ratio of the run-off to the rain- fall, and many other characteristics of the watershed are determined from these basic data. The two hydrographs on Plate 2, based upon actual records, present an example of the marked difference in run-off which can exist in two adjoining watersheds. The watershed area of both rivers is more than one thousand square miles, and the rainfall con- ditions in them are substantially the same. In the first case, the river is partially regulated by several large, natural lakes and large swamp areas, causing an unusually steady flow. In the second case, the watershed is steep — no lakes nor swamp areas exist, and PLATE Z. TYPICAL HYDROCRAPHS RUN orr Na-fura/ fieau/a^/o/7 - iu La A as . tn o /o s *« ._«■ ^^^^^ w m r • ^ ip^ '^ * ' -T a A^M 1 V„ ■' ^ § ^ JAN. FEB. MAR. APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUq. SEP. OCT. NOV. DEC. JAN. FEB. MAR. ^ /^^'a -/903 - Flashu 5frea/n - No /feouJa fi on 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 , I i ,1 1 ■ • i ill 1 1 1 1 1 1 l^B 1 k AM. ■ ■ 111 1 1 1 u 1 1 IB 1 I r "^5 y\v^\ 1 1 in L 1 k ^?! s -^^- ^— j^.. ' ^ JAN. FEB. MAn . APRIL MAY JUNE JULY Auq. SEP. OCT. NOV. DEC. JAN. FEB. MAR oe A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 29 the river is without any natural or artificial regulation. The dis- charge from this river is unusually flashy. Evaporation The next element in determining the water value of a water- shed is evaporation. Evaporation data are not so readily obtained as rainfall and run-off data, nor are the records now available so accurate as could be desired, for the reason that evaporation is afi'ected so largely by local conditions of exposure, winds and the depth of the water. Evaporation takes place from the ground sur- face, from vegetation and from the water surface. It is possible to determine the rate of evaporation with reasonable accuracy from the surface of any given sheet of water, but to determine the rate of evaporation from the ground surface and from vegetation, no reliable method has thus far been devised. For measuring evaporation on water surfaces, the pan method is usually adopted, which may be briefly described as follows: A metal pan, having a surface area of 10 to 20 square feet and a depth of not less than 2 feet, is filled with water and immersed in the lake so that its brim will be just above the lake surface, yet protected so that the waves on the lake surface will not slop into the pan. The depth of water is observed in the pan daily, and the record kept of the amount which has been lost by evaporation. From time to time water must be added to the pan to replenish the amount evaporated. As evaporation is a result of both wind and tempera- ture, it is essential that the evaporation station be established at some point on the lake surface that will represent the average atmospheric conditions of that particular locality, and record should be kept of the temperature and the direction and velocity of the wind. ' For the measurement of evaporation on land, similar pans are used, but are placed upon racks slightly elevated above the ground, so that the air may pass freely around and under them. Evaporation from the surface of the average lake in New England and the Middle States, under normal conditions, varies from 24 to 30 CONSERVATION OF WATER 38 inches per annum. In the dry climate of the southwest, it amounts to as much as 52 inches. Topographic Data The topographic data for the consideration of water storage propositions consist mainly in the area and physical conditions of the particular watershed under consideration. The area of the watershed must be determined from surveys or from reliable maps. The U. S. Geological Survey has made very extensive topographical survej's over large areas of the United States, and has published topographic maps divided into quadrangles which show very accu- rately the topography of the territory covered. Upon these maps the watersheds of streams can be easily traced, and in actual prac- tice it has been found possible to determine verj' closely from these maps the areas of watersheds and the areas and capacities of reser- voir sites. It is essential, however, when any given water stor- age project is under consideration, that a survey should be made of that particular reservoir site. Also, a reconnaissance should be made of the whole catchment area to determine its physical condi- tions as to forest cover, slope of the hillsides, nature and extent of cultivation, the geology of the territory, and all other facts which enter into and affect the run-off of the watershed. The stadia survey has been found in practice sufficientlj^ accvirate for all practical purposes in making preliminary studies of water storage projects, as it combines a saving of time and expense with a good knowledge of the topography of the basin. Geologic Data Geologic data is required when a storage project has reached the point where it is advisable to determine the practicability of the construction of a dam at any particular site selected. The data is obtained from surface and subsurface observations. The surface observations have to do with the character of the soil, the character and extent of outcroppings of rock, the location and A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 31 extent of boulders of large proportions, and other conditions which may have a bearing upon the possible passage of water through the top surface of the ground. The sub-surface conditions can be determined only by test pits or borings. The test pits are limited to a depth of 10 to 20 feet, and are dug at convenient points, developing only the soil conditions lying immediately below the surface. For sub-surface investigations, drill borings are the only reli- able method of obtaining accurate information. There are two principal methods of drill borings — the wash drill and the core drill method. The wash drill is limited to soft material and small boulders. It consists in drilling or churning a hole in the earth with a chisel- point bit, on a hollow stem, through which a jet of water is forced in a constant stream, to keep the hole washed out and to convey the loosened material to the surface, where it is caught in a suitable receptacle for examination. A casing of pipe, usually one inch larger than the drill, is driven down as the hole progresses. As the drilling is done inside of the casing, the loosened and washed out material rises to the surface inside of the casing. In the event of boulders being encountered in the drill hole, they may be shattered by an explosion of dynamite, provided they are not very large boulders. After shattering the rock, the drill casing may be forced through the fragments and the drilling continued. When a large boulder or ledge rock is encountered, the wash-drill method becomes impracticable. The core-drill is a cylindrical bit whose cutting edges are low- grade diamonds or hardened steel, and when in operation has a rotary motion. The drill stem is hollow, through which a jet of water is constantly forced to wash out the pulverized rock. A fur- ther system, known as the Shot method of core-drilling, uses steel shot and a soft metal bit, the shot being fed in through the center of the drill rod. The character of the rock to be drilled frequently determines the type of bit best suited to the work. With the core drill, it is possible to obtain an accurate knowledge of the A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF WATER STORAGE 33 geological strata penetrated, by the observation of the core of rock or earth which is secured by withdrawing the hollow drill rods and the bit. Investigations made by the City of Xew York, in connection with the Hudson River crossing for the new Catskill Aqueduct, required knowledge as to the character of the rock underlying the bed of the river at the place selected for the crossing. In these investigations, a remarkable case of core-drill boring was prosecuted from shafts sunk on either side of the river. Two inclined borings were made from either shaft to a length of 1650 and 2050 feet, respectively, and the information obtained from them was verified to a nicety during the past year, when the tunnel was driven 3022 feet long and 1200 feet below the water level of the Hudson River. Plate 3 illustrates the drill-boring investigations for the Hudson River crossing of the Catskill Aqueduct. The geological data must be complete, and carefully studied by the engineer, for he is to be guided bjr them in preparing his designs for the dam and its appurtenances which may be under con- sideration. One must also have a knowledge of the material to be used in the contemplated structures, and the geological data for any project should cover information in regard to the quantity and quality of such materials as are going to be needed for construction purposes, the first object being to determine whether such materials in sufficient quantities are obtainable in the immediate vicinity. Had proper geological data been collected and proper atten- tion been paid to the conditions for the foundation of the now famous Austin ( Pa. ) dam, that disastrous failure, in all probability, would never have happened. It would appear from reports on this disaster, that too much confidence was placed by the owners of the dam in an uncertain stratum of slate rock, when instead, the rock should have been removed to such a depth as to insure a solid and stable foundation. While it may be true that the section of the Austin dam was too light for the duty required of it, it would appear from all information at hand that the primary cause of the failure was the sliding of the rock upon which the dam was founded. 34 CONSERA'ATION OF WATER With all of the basic data, economic, hydrographic, topographic and geologic, which have been described herein, the engineer and the projector will have at hand a foundation upon which to rest their judgment and conclusions for any contemplated construction of storage reservoirs for the conservation of water resources. Without such data, no water conservation project would be complete. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that the engineer who under- takes to develop and direct conservation projects should see to it that he is supplied with an adequate amount of accurate data, before undertaking to give his opinion or to design hydraulic works, except it be for a preliminary or general consideration of the sub- ject. Oftentimes a project, which in the mind of the owner or promoter appears to have great merit, to the practiced engineer, upon an examination on the ground, may have no practical merit at all. The value of one's conclusions in the matter of water storage will depend upon judgment gained through experience, and techni- cal knowledge gained as students in colleges and students in practice. CHAPTER III WATER POWER The conservation of water for the generation of power has been accorded the most prominent place in all considerations of conservation matters during the past decade, and while it is of vast importance to the nation and the state and has received the great- est share of attention, yet one hesitates to pronounce water power as the most important of all phases of water conservation. Water supplies for the great municipalities of the country are equally important and should receive an equal share of attention. An abundant supply of pure and wholesome water is as essential to the prosperity of a people as is the power that drives their wheels of industry, transports them over land and water and supplies them with light and heat. For years nature has presented the spectacle of wasted energy in water courses, but now the work of conserving this wasted power appeals strongly to all who give to the subject serious thought. We have always had at hand in the United States an energy so tremen- dous that it is difficult for the mind to comprehend it — the energy of falling water, inexhaustible and continuing, to the extent of thirty- six million horse power, and this energy is permitted to flow away unused every year. It is possible to extract this energy from the waterfall without diminishing the volume of water one iota. In the matter of power developed from coal, the case is vastly different and directly the opposite to that of water. Coal once consumed is lost forever, while water is constantly returning to do duty again and again. Some adequate comprehension of what this means in the United States may be had from the following quotation from a 36 CONSERVATION OF WATER paper by Frank G. Baum, on the subject of "Water Power Devel- opment," presented before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at their convention in 1908 : "Power development stands today at the same stage, so fax- as its influ- ence on progress is concerned, as the construction of railroads did twenty or forty years ago. The immense benefits to be derived from the develop- ment of cheap power and the resulting safety of timber, oil and coal resources, should not be deferred by unfair government policy or indefinite assurance of the safety of the money invested. "The proper development of water powers would utilize I'esources now going to waste ; the development of coal mines, on the other hand, means the consumption of resources now stored and available at any future time. Every hydroelectric horse power saves the consumption of about twelve tons of coal per year. Therefore, the proper development of water powers would conserve the country's coal resources to that extent. For example: 1,000,000 hydro-electric horse power, transmitted to New York and its vicinity for manufacturing purposes, would result in saving about 12,000,000 tons of coal per year. This coal could be reserved for domestic purposes. This is about 20,000 cars of 50 tons each per month, or 666 cars per day. The development and use of less than 25 per cent of California's available water powers would stop all wood, oil and coal burning for power purposes in that State. The same is true for nearly all of the Western States, and a great many of the Eastern and Southern States." The conservation of water is, therefore, the conservation of other valuable resources, and if all the water powers could be devel- oped and their output substituted in the place of steam, the avail- able coal supply could be husbanded and used for purposes for which there is no other equal substitute. This may be called a dream of the ideal — and such it is. The nearer we come to reaching ideal conditions, the nearer to perfec- tion and the greater the good done to humanity. Is it not toward this very ideal in scientific and commercial pursuits that all earnest men are striving? We study and strive to equip ovn- minds and hands with skill to do our chosen work better than others ; we perfect our machinery to increase its efficiency, and we have developed water- WATER POWER 37 wheels to a verj'- high state of perfection, so that they will deliver to us, as far as possible, the full complement of power contained in the falling water passing through them. While we have done all this with our water-wheels and machines, we have not followed the same wise course in developing and increasing the efficiency of the water courses upon which the wheels are to be used. Every cubic foot of water, as it passes over the falls and rapids in the great and small water courses on its return j ourney to the sea, has in it an element of power which is valuable in proportion to the height through which it falls. The value of any water power is directly proportional to the volume passing over the fall every second and the uniformity of the flow. A large volume of flow over a high fall would be practically valueless for a power develop- ment if the flow were only for a short period of time, while a large and constant flow over a low fall would be of much greater value. The nearer the flow of a stream approaches a constant uniform volume, the nearer it approaches its ideal power value. The market or demand for the product of the falls is a further important element affecting the value of a water power and determines, in a large measure, the practicability of the development. Water power is a free gift to mankind by nature, but man must develop and utilize it at the expense of both labor and money, in order that he may receive any benefit therefrom. In the consid- eration of the conservation of water power, many well-meaning per- sons think only of the free gift of nature and entirely overlook the part which man's labor and money must of necessity play in the realization of the bounties of this free gift. The Hydrographic Branch of the U. S. Geological Survey estimates that the water courses of the United States have available at their minimum flow, 36,000,000 horse power, and that if the storage possibilities were to be developed along scientific lines, this enormous amount of power could be increased five times. Com- missioner Herbert Knox Smith, of the United States Department of Corporations, has placed the estimate of wasted water power in the United States at 30,000,000 horse power and he states that PLATE. -^ 5TATU5 OF y^ATER POWER IN the: UNITED STATES 1909 WATER POWER 39 there is now developed for electrical and other industrial purposes only 6,000,000 water horse power. Thus we see that at a conserva- tive estimate only one-fifth or one-sixth of the power possibilities of our rivers is being utilized in manufacturing industries, as may be seen by referring to Plate 4. The unit of power value of a waterfall is the horse power for a given period of time, one j^ear, to which we apply the term "horse-power-year," indicating one mechanical horse power devel- oped continuously twenty-four hours a day for 365 days. In large hydro-electric developments the unit of measure usually is the kilo- watt-year. The money value of a horse-power-year depends upon the cost of development plus the cost of operation and maintenance of the power-producing plant. The market value of a horse-power- year varies widely with the location, the demand and supply, as is the case with any other commodity, and the selling price of power is often governed by the cost of steam power in the same locality. Falling water and coal are the two great sources of controllable power which are closely competitive in the manufacturing activities of the world. Prices for electric power range from $9 to $28 per horse-power- j^ear, according to the local conditions as to the amount used and the distance of transmission from generator to consumer. The power of falling water was utilized for ages before the discovery of coal and the invention of the steam boiler and steam engine, but the advent of these latter machines, which could be depended upon for constant power, marked the decline of water power. One may now see along the streams all over this land, the old water-wheels going to decay after many years of successful operation in the little settlement where they were once the center of activity. New life has been put into water power by the discovery and development of electrical transmission, which makes it possible to use power many miles away from the waterfall. With the demand for more power in the manufacturing arts, for transportation and for light, together with the constantly increasing cost of coal, has come the increasing value of water powers and the demand for the 40 CONSERVATION OF WATER conservation and use of this natural resource which in so many cases is now allowed to go to waste. In a previous lecture we have described the unreliability of the natural or uncontrolled flow of streams — one time in flood and another in drought — and we pointed out the reasons for these irregu- larities. We showed, also, why water storage is the only practical method of controlling stream flow and conserving the energy of the floods for use in the dry periods. The forests are not adequate as a means of effecting storage for the dry seasons of the year, nor are the ground waters sufficient to maintain an equal flow. It is, therefore, necessary that some artificial barrier be placed in the way of the rushing flood waters, in order that they may be restrained and held in control. The storage reservoir is, therefore, the solution of the problem for the conservation of water, for water power as well as for other purposes. Experience in water power developments has demonstrated that it is practicable to develop any given power site on an unregu- lated stream on a 60-per-cent-of-time basis ; that is, a power devel- opment will be practicable if an installation of hydraulic machinery is made equal to that amount of power which can be depended upon from the natural flow of the stream for 60 per cent of the year, or about seven months. For the remaining 40 per cent of the year, some auxiliary source of power mvist be resorted to, if the plant is to maintain a constant power output equal to the water-wheel installation. As all hydro-electric developments and most of the water-driven factories depend upon a constant power for their very existence, the demand for water storage has become a matter of utmost importance to them and to all of those dependent upon them for employment, or the benefits of the power generated. As an instance of the loss due to lack of water for power, the Hudson River may be cited — where the loss to operatives in wages alone, due to lack of water, has amounted to $26.5,000 during the low- water period of a single year, and the manufacturers, also, sustained very heavy losses from the same cause, as great as or greater than the wage loss. On many of the other power rivers in New York WATER POWER 41 and in New England, similar losses are sustained to a greater or less extent. The mill owners, the operatives and the municipalities are now joining forces in demands for water storage by the State or by water power corporations. An advance bulletin recently issued by the United States Census Bureau, in regard to the statistics of manufactures, pre- sents some very interesting facts in regard to power used in the operation of the manufacturing industries in the United States. The total horse power of all kinds in the manufacturing estab- lishments was 18,680,776 horse power in 1909, as compared with 13,487,707 horse power in 1904, and 10,097,893 horse power in 1899. The following table shows the increase in ten years, the number of primary power generating engines and electric motors and the respective horse power installation of the four tj^pes used in manu- facturing industries : HORSE POWER INCREASE IN 10 YEARS POWER 1899 1909 H. P. PER CENT Steam engines, 8,139,579 14,202,137 6,062,558 74.5 Gas engines, 134,742 754,083 619,341 459. Water-wheels, 1,454,112 1,807,144 353,032 24.3 Electric motors, 492,936 4,817,140 4,324,204 877. These figures demonstrate not only the rapid growth of the manufacturing industries, but also the increasing demand for power and the comparative installations of the several types of primary power-producing machines — steam, gas and water being the prin- cipal ones. These figures do not tell the whole power story, as they do not include the power used for transportation, water-works pumping or electric lighting, which in themselves total a very large amount. While steam power increased 74.5 per cent in the decade between 1899 and 1909, water power used directly in the manufac- tures increased only 24.3 per cent in the same period. During the same decade, the combined power of electric motors deriving their current from some primary engine increased 877 per cent. It is 42 CONSERVATION OF WATER apparent that steam engines and water-wheels must be supplying the current for this tremendous development of electric-motor- driven machinery. Water power developments have been enor- mous, bvit have not been developed fast enough to keep pace with the demand for electric current. During all of this time and for many years previous, millions of horse power have been going to waste in the great rivers and minor streams of the United States. The figures in the foregoing table demonstrate, also, the great necessity for the conservation and utilization of the water resources now imperfectly utilized. The census bulletin shows further that the five leading states in the use of power in the manufacturing industries are, respectively: Pennsylvania, 2,921,000 horse power; New York, 1,998,000 horse power; Ohio, 1,583,000 horse power; Massachusetts, 1,175,000 horse power; Illinois, 1,013,000 horse power. In the use of water power in these same industries, the leading states are : New York, 394,000 horse power; Maine, 254,000 horse power; Massachusetts, 186,000 horse power; Wisconsin, 130,000 horse power, and New Hampshire, 127,000 horse power. The relative extent to which the different kinds of power in use in the several states is developed depends somewhat upon the character of the industries, the location of the state with respect to coal, fuel oil supplies and gas supplies, and the availability of water power. Of all the industries, the manufacture of wood-pulp and paper is the greatest consumer of water power, requiring 783,000 horse power annually to keep the paper mills of the United States in operation. The cotton mills are second, using 302,000 horse power, and the flour mills and grist mills, combined, use 259,000 horse power. No industry in the country approaches that of iron and steel as a power consumer — 3,250,000 horse power being used in this industry alone every year, of which quantity only two-tenths of one per cent is water power, used directly. If there be added to the total steam power used in manufac- tories, the combined power of the steam locomotives on the rail- roads and the steamboats plying on the inland waters, and this WATER POWER 43 power be resolved into an equivalent of coal consumed, a safe estimate would place that amount at 72,000,000 tons of coal con- sumed annually to keep the wheels of industry in operation. Atten- tion has been called to these statistics to emphasize the necessity for making provision for future power demands, and to open a view upon the field for water power developments and the opportunities for engineering skill which lie just ahead of us. No extended argument is needed to establish the fact that if water power is available and can be made to take the place of steam power to any considerable extent in the manufacturing industries and transportation systems, with a saving in operation, it should be done, and a way should be opened to this end. The undeveloped water powers of the United States, including the international boundary rivers Niagara and St. Lawrence, are variouslj^ estimated at 30,000,000 horse power to 50,000,000 horse power — much of which is to be found in the mountain states of the West and the Southeast. New England has long since devel- oped her water powers to a high degree of efficiency, but there is still some room for improvement. New York and Pennsylvania are not so well developed, proportionately, but have awakened to their possibilities and vast hydraulic developments are contem- plated in addition to those which have been made since 1890. The Pacific Coast States are rapidly deA'^eloping their water power resources and the Southern States are now taking steps to follow this example. By referring to Plate 5, we see the relative standing of the most important water power states, their water power resources and the comparative amounts of developed and undeveloped powers in each, respectively. Some of the most notable hydro-electric developments which have been accomplished in recent years are those situated at Niagara Falls, where 350,000 electric horse power is now being developed; the St. Mary's River at the Soo, with a development of 170,000 horse power; the White River, Seattle, 40,000 horse power, with an ulti- mate development of 100,000 horse power, and on the Mississippi Pi^^TE. S 5TATU5 OF DEYLLOPMLNT IN THL TEN M05T IMPORTANT WATLR POWER 5TATE5 ^ — Wa/er Poi-vers onr/i&e^ Su //?^^/e^ua /s €7na Corborerr/o^s *■ D£V£.LOPED 4* ■UNDELVEl-OF'SD p03s/I>/e ivafe-r £ower V///////A ■llSJ,093H?Vy NC.W YORK <^EORQ/A WASHINQTON tVISCONS/N S. CAROLINA MINNESOTA MICHiqAN /, SOO, 000 SOO, OOO S, BIO, 000 4 JO, OOO WATER POWER 45 River at Keokuk, with a development of 300,000 horse power. Of these great developments, the one at Niagara Falls is probably the best known and the most prominent in the public mind — because of its location and the agitation regarding the effect it might possibly have on the scenic beauty of these great cataracts which for more than a century have been the Mecca for the tourists of the world. The power value of the two cataracts at Niagara Falls is conserva- tively estimated at 5,000,000 horse power, although some estimates place the value as high as 7,000,000 horse power. The develop- ments so far made on the American and Canadian sides of the falls have a combined power output of 350,000 horse power, or about 5 per cent of the total power value of the falls. As an illustration of what water storage means to power devel- opments, let us assume a case and follow it through to a conclusion. A certain river, which we may call Typical River, has a water- shed of 1000 square miles above the manufacturing town of Alpha, which has had a developed water power site for a number of years under the old style, low-head methods of development. There is a total available fall of 80 feet at this power site, but at present it has been developed at three separate dams, at 35, 25 and 10 foot heads, respectively, and 10 feet of the available head is lost between the three dams. The combined water-wheel installation at these three sites has been made to the limit of practicability under existing conditions, with the river unregulated. The power capac- ity of the plants, 7635 horse power, can be developed for only 60 per cent of the time, or seven months of the year, while the flow of the stream is sufficient to permit of such development. Whenever the flow falls below the capacity of the water-wheels, the mills depending upon them for power either have to cut down their work, with the consequent loss of output and income, and corre- sponding loss of wages to the operatives, or else some auxiliary source of power must be resorted to, to maintain them at their full efficiency. Steam engines and gas engines are usuallj^ resorted to, to meet such emergencies, at an added cost for coal and labor in operation. Pi. ATE. o cty^/a ^p offT^ ^,rr ^eco/dC PLATE 7 TYP/CAL R/VER lonno - - - D/SCHARGE CURVES BY DAYS /A/ T»£ YfAR K, *'''""' — Ki k ± Q jf <* finnn V O il- u s U^ V - x\ > ^ 2 ' ,.\ _ i V \ ..7 (TOO i- •- l^ \ ^5* O ^>. ^Si^ Ct 20OO S^ '^^ ^^^mmMM/MmmMm/>imMmwMm^w/M7/Mw/m/////////mM 0-) /„n„ - "~ i; ^i^-: ■_- ._"' ^ ~'---- . ■'=^--:r^: — 's^iji - . & 5- 5 ? 8 S 1 5 1 1 1 -. ^ « ^ 1 1 § 1 s nAyS I /SI TN£ y^-A/^ 4.8 CONSERVATION OF WATER Every spring and autumn a flood of water in Typical River pours out of the hills, flows by the mills at Alpha, unused and uncontrolled, and in addition to being wasted, frequently causes an overflow into the streets, with damage to property and a menace to the public health. At such times of flood the mills cannot use the flow of water beyond the capacity of the wheel installation, and it would be folly for the owners to put in water-wheels to the full extent of the power value of the flood waters, for these additional wheels would be idle the greater part of the j'ear. It would be equally unwise to install water-wheels only for the low water flow, provided there was demand enough for the power from a larger installation. As has been said before, it has been found advisable in practice to develop water power for the ordinary manufacturing purposes up to 60 per cent of the power value of the vinregulated stream, and to take the chance of having to furnish auxiliary power for the remaining 40 per cent of the time, or to reduce the output of the mill. Now let us apply scientific conservation treatment to Typical River and assume that records of the discharge have been kept for a number of j^ears at the Alpha power site, upon which the hydro- graph on Plate 6 has been constructed. These records indicate a maximum flood flow of 11,000 second-feet and a minimum flow of 200 second-feet. From these records we will also construct flow curves of the river to show the average dependable flow and the flow of a dry year. Plate 7 is such a hydrograph, the horizontal scale indicating the days of the year, and the vertical scale the discharge in second- feet per twentj'-four hours. The full line curve represents the flow of the stream in an average jeav, as determined from the long-term records, and the dotted line indicates the flow of a dry year, occur- ring once in five or ten years. Following now the full line curve, Plate 7, we see that for a very short period, only a day or so, the discharge of the river is 11,000 second-feet, and for 20 out of the 36.3 days in the year, the discharge is 5,000 second-feet or more; for 130 daj^s it is 2,000 WATER POWER 49 second-feet or more ; and that the low water flow is only 200 second- feet : this low flow being for a few days only. Following the dotted line, we find that in the dry year the extreme flood discharge amounted to 11,000 second-feet; that for only 10 days was the dis- charge 5,000 second-feet or more; that for 100 days, 2,000 second- feet or more, and that the low flow was equal to the long-term extreme of 200 second-feet. The water power owners at Alpha, having followed the prac- tice of installing water-wheels capable of developing their full capac- ity for 60 per cent of the time, 220 days, based upon the mean flow of the river, which we find by reference to the chart indicates a flow of 1,200 second-feet, this flow in turn yields power at the three developments as follows: At the 35-foot head, 3,818 horse power; at the 25-foot head, 2,727 horse power, and at the 10-foot head, 1,090 horse power — making a total of 7,635 horse power, assuming that 80 per cent of efficiency is being accomplished. A study of the watershed develops the possibility of creating a storage reservoir at a point called Bluffhead, which would have a capacity of 15,000,000,000 cubic feet, and that such a reservoir can be constructed at a reasonable and economical cost. It has also been determined, from a study of the stream flow records, that the water yield of the catchment area above the dam site is more than sufficient to fill the reservoir every year. Carrying the investigation still further, let us see what the effect of such a storage reservoir would be on the flow of the stream •at Alpha, and what the benefits or increase would be to the power plants at that point. First: If the water is used to increase the flow after the natural flow of the stream falls below 1,200 second-feet, it would be capable of adding the equivalent of 1,200 second-feet for the low water period of 145 days, but the amount of water required to maintain a flow equal to the capacity of the water-wheel installation would average only 750 second-feet for this period. The reservoir can, therefore, yield a greater increase than sufficient water to operate the mills with their present water-wheels for 100 per cent of the time. 50 CONSERVATION OF WATER without having to resort to auxihaiy power. The 15,000,000,000 cubic feet of water in storage is capable of maintaining a constant flow at Alpha of 1,800 second-feet throughout the entire year, by supplying the deficiency in the natural flow for the period of time after it has fallen as low as 1,800 second-feet. Second: With the assurance of 1,800 second- feet flow, new water- wheels can now be installed at the three dams, using the same heads as at present, and develop .5,626 horse power, 4,090 horse power and 1,636 horse power, respectively, making a total of 11,352 horse power as against 7,635 horse power before the reservoir was built. This is a gain of 3,717 horse power, or 50 per cent. The possibility at Alpha is capable of a far better treatment than simply increasing the capacitj^ at the three separate mills. Combine them into a single development, thereby taking advantage of the full available head. With a constant flow of 1,800 second- feet and a head of 80 feet developed according to present-day effi- cient methods, and equipped with modern hydraulic machinerj^, the output of such a power development would be 13,100 horse power for 24 hours per day and 365 days a year — a gain over the former development of 5,465 horse power, or 71.6 per cent. Thus the efficiency of Typical River at Alpha would be nearly doubled, and, in addition, the storage reservoir would restrain and impound the floods of the spring and autumn, minimize the damage along the banks of the stream and entirely remove the menace to public health and safety. We might carry this illustration still further, but it has been carried far enough to demonstrate the value of conservation of water resources by storage for the development and improvement of water power. The pioneer hydro-electric development on a large scale was that at Niagara Falls, where the water is taken from above the great cataracts, passed through the wheels and then returned to the river below the Falls. When this project was started in 1890, the pro- jectors were far-seeing men of affairs, yet they had their misgivings as to the success of the enterprise. At that date, turbine water- WATER POWER 51 wheels working under a head of from 90 to 100 feet were con- sidered about the hmits of possibilities. Today, at Niagara Falls, turbine water-wheels are working under a head of 210 feet and the Hmit has not yet been reached. This goes to show what is meant by the conserving of the power in the waterfall. The withdrawal of water from above the falls for the development of power under 210 foot head may be no greater than the amount withdrawn and utihzed under 96 foot head, but the amount of power generated would be more than doubled. What is true of Niagara Falls may be true of a great many of our large water power developments, and in many instances it would be economy for the water power companies to discard their antiquated hj-^draulic machinery and install modern water-wheels, which will operate under the full available head with greater efficiency and yield a sufficiently increased amount of power to more than justify the expenditure of money for the improvement. There are situations on other rivers where water powers here- tofore used for lumber or paper mill purposes are reaching the end of their usefulness, owing to the scarcity of lumber or pulpwood on that particular stream. It is not unreasonable to anticipate that at many such sites the water power works will be remodeled, modern- ized and converted into a hj^dro-electric development for the genera- tion and transmission of power to some manufacturing site where the power may be used to greater advantage than at the present site. Such a development would be in the line of true conservation for perfecting and developing the efficiency of the water course. The engineering and scientific problems involved in this ques- tion are great, but are not insurmountable, for the engineer of the present daj^ finds no project too great for his skill and energy. He delights in doing the impossible, as it were, provided it is worth the doing, and he may be depended upon to develop and improve the great hydraulic resources and power possibilities of our countrj'^ as rapidly as they are needed and the way is opened for him to proceed. The conservation of water, therefore, opens to the engineer a new field, or an enlarged field, for his activities and the opportuni- ties along these lines are increasing almost dailJ^ From day to 52 CONSERVATION OF WATER day, one learns of such enormous pro j acts as that being constructed on the Mississippi River, at Keokuk, where a development of 300,- 000 horse power is to be made, at an expenditure of $27,000,000, by the construction of a masonry dam across the Mississippi, which, in addition to being used for power development, will have a vast beneficial influence upon navigation in that stream. Other equally important hydro-electric developments are pro- jected in the East, the South, the Middle West, and on the Pacific Coast, and millions of dollars are being invested in these enter- prises, in all of which the services of engineers in all branches of the profession are indispensable factors. CHAPTER IV WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES, SANI- TATION AND IRRIGATION Water is as necessary for the development of cities as for the development of power. With the development and growth of cities comes the advancement of civilization, and as civilization becomes more complex, it demands a more liberal use of water. One of the most valuable assets which any city can possess is an ample supply of pure and wholesome water. The preservation of the water resources for domestic water supplies and their protection against needless and preventable pollu- tion is one of the objects of conservation, and one which is of vital interest to the people. Two other objects of conservation — sanita- tion and irrigation — will also be considered in this lecture. Naviga- tion is an equally important phase of the conservation of water resources, but as this matter is one of the recognized functions of governmental activities, we will not take up that subject in this course of lectures. Municipal Water Supplies The subject of domestic and municipal water supplies is so vast that one can only touch upon the high points of interest in the limits of a single lecture. It stretches from the crude wells of the earliest days of human history to such immense projects as the Catskill reservoir and aqueduct upon which the City of New York is spending $170,000,000. The ancients depended upon wells and pools for the supply of water for their families and flocks. Later, the cities built cisterns 54 CONSERVATION OF WATER in the streets, to which the people might go and draw water for their domestic needs, and still later a reservoir and aqueduct with fountains were built in the ancient city of Rome. This later public work is probably the first public water supply brought from a distance in the world's history. From that time until the present, public water supplies have been developed — at first, by slow stages, through the invention of metal and pottery pipes and by the increase in the number of fountains and cisterns in the streets, until the days of the steam pumping engine and the large gravity supplies for modern cities. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the cities of Fjurope developed and improved their water supplies only after fighting against some of the same obstacles which we encounter in our day; namely, the irregularity^ of the flow of the natural water courses and the pollution of the sources of supply- Water works engineering has so improved the methods and appliances for collecting, purifying and distributing the water of municipal supplies that we now consider them well-nigh perfect, and such great advances have been made in the manner and method of securing and delivering water to populated sections, particularly during the past fifty years, that one hardljr dares prophesy what the next fifty years may bring forth. As the popu- lation of the United States is growing with such rapidity, especially in the vicinity of the larger cities, immediate consideration should be given to water supply provisions for the future. The time has come in our national life when we should take account of our water resources and plan for future needs. Partic- ular attention should be given to the municipalities which are grow- ing rapidly and closely together and where the local supply of water is becoming very limited. In addition to the problems of where and how to obtain an adequate supply of pure water for domestic needs, there are two other vital questions which must be solved by many municipalities : What is a reasonable rate of water consump- tion to allow each citizen before he may be said to be extravagant and wasteful, and how shall water-waste be prevented? The principles of conservation, when properly applied to water WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 55 resources, will take care of the adequacy and the purity of all muni- cipal supplies. Municipal water supplies in the future are to be pure and wholesome in fact, and not in name only. Our people are awakening to the knowledge of the great importance of an ade- quate supply of pure and wholesome water and they will not always be content with an inadequate supply, nor will they be satisfied to use an inferior quality of water polluted with sewage as they are actually doing in many municipalities today. The distribution pipes of a water works are the arterial system of municipal life, and if the water flowing through these arteries is impure or inadequate, the community becomes unhealthy, inactive or demoralized, just as the human body, if furnished with impure blood, cannot live up to its best and highest opportunities. Carry- ing the analogy still further, the sewers are the veinous system of a municipality, and as the veins all lead to a purifying organ, so the sewers of our cities should lead to a purification plant, and the waste materials of city life should no longer be cast off into the rivers and lakes, to carry danger and disease to other communities in their vicinity. There are, unfortunately, not a few water supply systems in our thickly populated states, which, though required by the terms of their charters and the unwritten laws of civilization, to furnish "pure and wholesome water," are, in reality, delivering to their customers water which is not only at times filthy to sight and smell, but is always viciously impure. When such conditions exist, the consum- ers may complain and call for pure water, but, too often, they receive in reply the comforting statement that the water works is doing the best it can and that it would cost too much to make any improve- ment. The State Board of Health may be appealed to and it may examine the situation, report upon conditions found and recommend a remedy, but in some states it has no power, under existing statutes, to enforce a remedy, except to a very limited degree. The reason frequently given for not improving the quality of a bad water supply is that the expense is too great, and the short- sighted policy is followed, that it is better to let the people suffer 56 CONSERVATION OF WATER the consequences of impure water, or to move out of the communitj^ rather than to increase the bonded indebtedness of the municipality or water company for a purer supply. One of our most promising young cities has been suffering from such a condition for a number of years. It has been divided by two interests — a private water company and a municipal plant — both of which have been delivering to the consumers a highly polluted raw water taken from a river at a point 20 miles below a city having a population of 450,000 whose sewers empty into the stream. Through the prevalence of typhoid fever, that city has acquired an unenviable reputation; has been shunned bjr people who otherwise might have made their residence there, and its industrial advance- ment has been greatly hampered. Typhoid fever has claimed the lives of some of her most prominent citizens and of a large number of men and women in the prime of their lives and usefulness. It would be impossible to estimate, with any degree of accuracy, the actual financial loss which that city has sustained during the past ten years. Within the past two years effective action has been taken to remedy the conditions and reclaim the good name of the town. A new water works has been constructed, including a large filtration plant, and pure water in abundance is now available to every consumer. An article, published in the Outlook about a year ago, by Mr. Earl Mayo, on the "Cost of Disease," cites a specific case of this character, from which we take the following facts : "A few years ago the town of P was considering taking steps to obtain a pure water supply. The water used by the town came from a river along which were many manufacturing towns and big mills. The sewage from these towns and the water from these mills was dumped into the river above the town at various points, the nearest of which was only about eight (8) miles away. It was known that the water supply was contaminated, for examinations had disclosed the presence of dangerous bacteria in large numbers. Cases of typhoid fever were always present in the city. "The need for the establishment of a filtration plant or the adoption of some other means to render the water supply safe was fully evident. The WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 67 obstacle to definite action in this direction was the usual one of expense. Of the various proposals for a pure water supply brought before the citizens, the one that had the approval of the engineering and health authorities as Jbeing reasonably satisfactory involved the expenditure of $225,000. A contention arose among the citizens — some advocating the plan, others pointing out the town was already heavily encumbered by the expense incurred in street paving and other improvements. By one means or another, they managed to postpone any definite action. "In the late winter of the succeeding year, the heavy rains and melting snow and ice washed into the river the accumulated dirt and debris that had been lying on the frozen ground above the city. For several days the water ■ flowing through the pipes and into the homes of the citizens of the town was turbid, but this was nothing unusual. Exactly ten days after the freshet, an unusual number of cases of typhoid fever began to make their appearance. Within a week the number had increased so greatly that the town realized that it was in the grip of an epidemic of typhoid. For twelve (12) weeks the fever continued with scarcely abated violence, and the number of cases remained above the ordinary for several months following. "At the conclusion of the epidemic, one of the citizens set out to glean information as to what the spring freshet sweeping a flood of typhoid bacteria into every home in the community had cost that city. In the three months while the outbreak was at its worst, there had been 1,067 cases of typhoid and 69 deaths. About one-half of those stricken with the disease were wage-earners, and the average time lost from work by these was four (4) weeks. Others were forced to leave their work in order to care for relatives who were ill. Of those who died at different age periods, the largest number were in middle life, or just approaching the earning period when their economic value was the highest. The final account, based upon the statistics collected by this citizen, showed a total actual expenditure for medical and nurses' attendance and medicine of $113,100. To this should be added the economic value of 69 lives lost, at least $172,500, making a grand total of expense and loss to that city from one epidemic of typhoid, the enormous sum of $285,600. These figures are, of course, not comprehen- sive. No allowance was made for the loss of time of others than those working for wages. No estimate was made of the cost of the long train of other diseases due directly or indirectly to the same cause as the typhoid outbreak. Leaving out of account all of these other important factors, 58 CONSERVATION OF WATER however, the exhibit showed that this one outbreak cost the town more than the entire amount needed to pay for an improved water supply. It was a terribly expensive lesson, but it was an effective one. "An appropriation for pure water supply was then made with practi- cally no opposition, and the completion of the works saw the average yearly death rate from typhoid and other related diseases decreased more than two-thirds. Capitalizing the saving made by this improvement during a period of twenty years shows that the town had gained millions of dollars by its investment in a safe water supply." Other cases of this kind might be cited, but it is unnecessary because there is such a close similarity of conditions between them all. The usual remedies proposed for conditions such as those described above are: (a) Seek a new source of water supply which will be pure. (b) Purify the present supply by filtration or some other approved method, if it must be used. (c) Stop the pollution of the streams. It is frequently difficult and beyond the financial ability of the municipality to go to great distances to secure a supply from a stream which is adequate to meet its requirements. If such is the case, the municipality, by force of circumstances, must resort to the best supply of water within its reach, and if it has not the power or ability to control the watershed from which this supply is to be taken, it must resort to purification. Purification systems are ex- pensive and burdensome to the smaller cities, but in the end it is an economy to install them for the conservation of human life — as it would have been in the case of the town cited above. We find that many of the cities of Europe have been forced to resort to purifica- tion plants for their municipal water supplies and have met with great success, to the advantage of the community. Filtration plants are being adopted in this country, and many cities are applying these remedial methods. When a large stream or river is the source of a municipal water WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 69 supply and other municipalities are situated along its banks, the lower communities may demand that the up-stream municipalities should be forced to stop polluting the water. It is always much easier to make this demand than to enforce the remedy, but we believe that the time is coming, in the not far-distant future, when it will not be a matter of demand or suggestion only, but one of realization. No city, because it happens to have an advantageous location upon a stream of potable water and has grown larger and faster than her sister municipalities situated less favorably, has the right, nor should she be permitted, to discharge raw sewage and other refuse into that stream, thereby rendering its waters a menace to health and unfit for domestic use, and forcing an expensive system of filtration upon the smaller city. This is one of the very impor- tant questions of today involved in the water conservation move- ment, and it must be settled justly for the water supplies of the future. Conservation and common sense point out the unwisdom of permitting our potable streams to be polluted as they are at present, and it will require careful study and scientific skill to devise proper methods of remedy for the existing evils. Storage Most municipalities depend upon surface water for their sup- plies and as the flow of streams is such an uncertain quantity, it generally becomes a matter of storage in order to provide an ade- quate and dependable supply. The storage of water for domestic use has a radically different effect upon the stream than does the storage for flood control or power development, for the reason that the water is diverted from its natural course and not returned to it immediately below the reservoir dam. For power development and flood control, the water is released from storage and allowed to flow in its usual channel to the benefit of all riparian rights situated upon the stream. 60 CONSERA'ATIOX OF WATER The equitable apportionment of sources of water supply is also a conservation problem. The rights and interests of the small municipalities must be recognized and protected, lest the large cities appropriate to themselves all of the available water supplies in that particular locality. A serious situation developed a few years ago in Boston and vicinity, with regard to water supply for the sur- rounding suburban towns. After considerable study, a metropoli- tan water and sewerage district was created for the purpose of providing an ample supply of water and of taking care of the sewage for the whole metropolitan district. A similar situation is now confronting the cities and villages of Yonkers, Mt. Vernon, New Rochelle, Port Chester, etc., in the southern section of West- chester County, adjoining the city of New York. In 1910, the reserve supplies of these several independent municipalities were completely exhausted and had it not been for the accessibility of the Croton and Kensico supplies stored by the city of New York, a water famine of enormous consequences would have resulted. Through what we may term the good nature of New York City, the cities and villages in the water famine territory were permitted, for a number of months, to obtain water from the aqueducts and pipe lines of New York. As time goes by and this district becomes more thickly populated, it will be confronted with a more critical condi- tion than has ever been thought possible, for if some conservative action is not taken and the reserve supply for the city of New York becomes limited, it is safe to predict that that city will be obliged to conserve all of her supply for the use of her own citizens. To meet such a situation, there seem but two ways open for these municipali- ties. Either they must be annexed to the city of New York, to share in her water resources, or a metropolitan district similar to that at Boston must be created and an adequate source of supply obtained from some territory exterior to the countj^ — for all of the available supplies within a radius of 60 miles of New York City have been appropriated bj^ New York and the surrounding municipalities. New York herself has been forced to go to the Catskill ^Mountains, a distance of 97 miles, in order to increase her WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 61 supply. The city of Greater New York now requires, on the average, 543,000,000 gallons per day. The new Catskill reservoir and aqueduct, when completed, will be capable of delivering to the city an additional 500,000,000 gallons per day. The most completely developed watershed, as to storage, for a large municipal supply, is the Croton River — a part of New York's system — in which reservoirs have been built capable of storing eight-ninths of the entire yield of the watershed. The stor- age development of this watershed is so complete that to accom- plish the saving of the one-ninth of the supply which now goes to waste would entail an expenditure of $145,000,000. This situation and the rapid growth, of the city made it essential that a new and larger source of supply should be immediately found. Hence the Catskill development. Water Waste The responsibility for the waste of water in municipal water supplies is about equally divided between the system and the con- sumer. The waste is of two kinds — preventable and unavoidable. The consumers are the greatest offenders in the former cause of waste and defects in the system of distribution are the principal causes in the latter. Preventable water waste includes wilful waste and excessive leakage. Wilful waste is that which draws a pailful in order to get a glassful of cool water to drink, or which allows fixtures to run continuously in cold weather to prevent freezing and save plumbers' bills, or indulges in the running of water where no good at all results to any one. Other preventable wastes are those which could easily have been foreseen in the design and construction of the street mains, house connections and plumbing fixtures. The unavoidable wastes are those due to the breaking of pipes, failure of house connections and the hundreds of small leaks which cannot be located and stopped. These wastes occur in every sj^stem of water distribution, however well designed and operated, and 62 CONSERVATION OF WATER increase directlj' with the size of the system and the water pressure. For the prevention of the excessive use and preventable waste of water, two methods are in use : (a) The water meter, which places a check upon the con- sumer and cures a great many cases of needless waste. (b) The location and stopping of the hundreds of discover- able underground leaks in the pipes. For locating the underground sources of water waste, a system of flow surveys in the distribution pipes, called Pitometer surveys, has been in successful operation for a number of years. This system employs the Pito tube to determine the rate and direction of flow in the pipes, and makes a study of all service taps to determine what is a reasonable use of water in the district under survey. Pitometer survej^s in some of the larger cities have disclosed most astonishing figures as to the extent of water waste and have resulted in effectually saving both water and money to those muni- cipalities by locating the leaks so that they could be stopped. As an illustration of a successful Pitometer survey, that made of the water supply system in the city of Washington, D. C, may be cited. Plate 8 shows the result of the survey, the daily con- sumption, the population and the decrease in consumption follow- ing the stoppage of leaks. For the data upon which this chart has been constructed, I am indebted to the Pitometer Company, of New York City. The full black line at the top of the diagram represents the actual daily consumption in the years 1896 to 1910, inclusive. The second full line represents the population, showing the gradual increase from 36,000, in 1896, to 53,000, in 1910. The curve at the lower right-hand corner of the diagram shows the actual extent of the underground leaks discovered and stopped during the four years of the Pitometer survey. The survey was started in 1906 and the effect of locating and stopping leaks in the water pipes is clearly illustrated by the change in the upper curve, and by the area between the lines A-C and A-B. The line A-B represents the actual daily consumption. The line A-C represents P1.AT£ e. Ao- ZO- /o 10 9 Stopp/^ge o/r Water PV/iste /N THE C/TY OF WASHINGTON. D.C. /.SAK.S O/saoysREa by a PtroM eter survc-y. ^ofi 00 9 9> go 70 ■ 60 -SO .40 -J • 30 20 -J 64 CONSERVATION OF WATER what the actual daily consumption would have been had not these leaks been stopped, and the area between A-B and A-C shows a reduction in consumption from 67,000,000 gallons per day in 1906 to 59,000,000 gallons in 1910. During the same period, the popula- tion of the city continued to increase. A number of water meters were installed in the system during the period between 1906 and 1910, the effect of which is shown upon the chart between the lines A-D and A-C, and represents about 10 per cent of the total amount of water saved, including the stoppage of underground leaks. The following references to the consumption of water in several large cities in the United States will serve to illustrate the meaning of conservation, as applied to the waste of water in municipal water supplies: The data are taken from a paper on "Water Waste," by Mr. Edward W. Bemis, of the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity of New York City. "Metropolitan Water District. — In Boston the percentage of services metered increased from 5.52 per cent on December 31, 1907, to 19.96 per cent on December 12, 1910. The population grew from 612,580 to 674,4!00, but the average daily consumption of water declined from 96,422,800 gallons to 87,346,700 gallons, or from 157 gallons per day per capita to 130 gallons." "Lowell, Mass., with a population of 106,000, has metered 79 per cent of its 12,494 services, and has kept down the consumption daily, per capita, to 51 gallons. The consumption per day in 1910 was not 2 per cent higher than in 1890, when the population was only 78,000." "In Hartford, Conn., with a population in 1910 of 99,000, the propor- tion of taps metered has increased in ten years from 6 to 99 per cent, and the per capita daily consumption has fallen from 90 to 77 gallons at a time when the general tendency of most cities, with improvements in plumbing, has been towards a large per capita increase." "The per capita daily consumption at Providence, R. I., with universal metering, has, in twenty years, increased only from 51 to 63 gallons." "In Dubuque, Iowa, with a population of 38,000, an increase of meters from 12 to 100 per cent of the taps during the last four years has reduced the daily consumption from 3,826,000 to 2,614,000 gallons — or from 101 gallons WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 65 per day, per capita, to 67 gallons. The operating expenses have fallen from $42,016 to $33,820, while the receipts have increased from $53,697 to $61,823. This has raised the net earnings from $12,540 to $27,869. The last annual report states that this improvement was 'made possible mainly through the use of meters.' " The water meter, as a check upon the consumer's use and waste of water, has proved very effectual in a great many cities and while it is not a "cure-all," it is a great source of saving without in the least curtailing the consumer's right to use all of the water that is necessary for his needs. A few years ago, an allowance of 70 gallons per capita per day was considered a liberal one in the smaller cities, and the consumption of 100 gallons or over, per capita, was considered wasteful. In the larger cities, a higher per capita con- sumption has been allowable, owing to the larger use of water in manufacturing industries and for municipal purposes. The multi- plication of water-consuming appliances and sanitary conveniences in our modern dwellings, hotels, office buildings and factories, and the increasing requirements of water for industrial purposes, all tend to increase the rate of consumption. The time is now past when a family is satisfied with a single water tap in the house or a hydrant in the yard. It must have a modern bathroom, laundry and kitchen, with all the customary water-consuming appurtenances. We therefore find that what was a liberal allowance of water per capita twenty years ago is only a reasonable one today. Plate 9 shows a comparison of the consumption of water, in gallons per capita per day, in the nine larger cities of the United States, based upon records taken from reports in 1905-1906. It will be observed that great variations in the amount exist as between the several cities included in the chart. To determine the reason- ableness of the amount consumed in each city, one would have to know the many conditions which have a direct bearing upon the use of water in the municipality. There is, unfortunately, an erroneous idea prevalent in the minds of many people that because water is free and abundant in Pj-flTE 9 AMOUNTS OF WATLR USED In The Nine Laraesf Cifies of ^^e United 5 fates Qcf//ons Jber Cajb/'fa />er- c/cru 3^£ WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 67 nature, it should be just as free at the tap in the house. Even though a municipahty is fortunate in the possession of an unhmited gravity water supply, in the final analysis every gallon of water wasted at the tap represents money to the municipality or the water company furnishing it. Hence, a waste of water always means a waste of money. How, then, shall we determine what is an ade- quate supply of water for any municipality? It may be briefly stated as such an amount as will give every one in the municipality all that he requires for his necessities, comfort and good health, without fostering wastefulness, together with a reasonable amount to be used by the municipality itself for fire protection, street cleaning and sewer flushing. The water meter is solving the question of a proper water con- sumption allowance and it fills a place that nothing else has done. It permits the consumer to take all the water for which he is willing to pay and protects the water works by registering the quantity taken. On the other hand, the flat-rate system guesses at what the consumer will probably use, extravagantly or otherwise, and taxes . him upon that basis, but never determines whether his use of water is reasonable or not. It does, however, require the careful con- sumer to help pay for the extravagant and wasteful one, and, in a sense, places a premium on carelessness and wastefulness, while at the same time, the water works is burning coal, running its pumps, or depleting its storage reservoir in an endeavor to keep up with the demands of wastefulness. The water meter is scientific, just, and saves at both ends — for the consumer and for the water works — and consequently may properly be called an instrument of conservation. The chart on Plate 10 shows the percentage of meters installed in the systems of ten cities of the United States and the reduction of consumption in proportion to the increased percentage of metered services. Efficiency in maintenance of water supplj' system is an evi- dence of good engineering as great as can be shown in the original design and construction of the system, yet this fact is frequently overlooked by those intrusted with the operation and maintenance of PLATS. lO EFFECT OF METERS ON yV/ITER CONSUMPTION ZZ Percentooe of Service s Meters /Yffj Qa//ons c/a//u. ^^^ ■'\,Oo7o 61 W//////////////1 71 'OCX WL 86 9JX ^^^^ 79% 63 I say- 60 m j/% COVINGTON, KY. JACKSONVILLE, FLA. LEXINGTON, KY. MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. TOPEKA, KAN. ST. PAUL, MINN. HOLYOKE,MASS. CHICAGO,IU.. PHILADELPHIA, PA. DENVER, COL. WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 69 a system. The detection and prevention of leakage and waste in the water distribution system of a large city is an engineering work of no trivial importance. In a recent issue of the Scientific American, the following statement was made: "When large cities are spending millions of dollars on new water supplies-, it would seem that all municipal authorities should give heed to the extraordinary waste that may be found in their distribution system. It has been authoritatively estimated that one-half of the total water supply of the metropolitan district of Boston is wasted, while the preventable waste and unaccounted-for loss in New York City has been estimated at from 40 to 70 per cent. In Chicago, in 1908, T. C. Phillips, Engineer of Water Surveys, states that, 'The total loss of water in the districts surveyed in the city of Chicago amounts to from 70 to 80 per cent of the total supply.' " Sanitation The sanitary condition of surface water is closely related to domestic water supplies and forms one of the important parts of the latter, as has been shown heretofore, but it has a further rela- tion to the public welfare which properly can be considered a part of the conservation movement. Professor William T. Sedgwick, in a paper presented before the New England Water Works Association in 1901, stated as follows : "Few sanitarians even realize how recent are our modern ideas of water- supply sanitation. The clear recognition of water as a vehicle of infectious diseases dates no further back than fifty years, and our methods of water purification so far at least as these may be called scientific and not purely empirical may be said to have grown up since 1886. There can be no doubt that epidemics due to infected water supplies had frequently decimated the human race during the long roll of the centuries that preceded the nineteenth, and yet mankind had continued in almost complete ignorance of its imminent danger from this source. If we ask how it happened to be left for the nine- teenth century to teach us the great sanitary lesson that water is one of the most dangerous vehicles of infection, we shall probably find the answer in the 70 CONSERVATION OF WATER fact that it is only in this century that careful scientific investigation of the natural liistory of disease has ever reached a high level. Modem sanitarians have been more fortunate than their predecessors simply because they have been more scientific." The effect of raw sewage poured into running water may extend many miles below the outlet of the offending sewer and prove a menace to the health of people dwelling near the stream. Freshets, in receding, leave behind them, on the flat lands and the banks of the river, deposits of debris to decajr in the sun or leave pools of sewage-infected water to stagnate — either condition being a positive and direct cause of disease. Again, during the low water stages of the year, the ratio of sewage pollution to the flow of the stream increases with the diminu- tion of the pure water supplj'. When the natural flow of the stream into which raw sewage is emptied falls below seven second- feet for each 1,000 inhabitants in the sewered district, the stream becomes an active nuisance and a source of danger to the community through which it flows. The cities which pollute the running waters are not the only offenders, for those on the shores of the Great Lakes have for years indulged in the practice of pouring their refuse into the har- bors and the water courses emptjang into them, making them filthy and unhealthful and endangering the lives of their own people. These cities are now reaping the harvest of their own sowing. Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo, for example, have been put to millions of dollars of expense to secure pure water and have extended their intake tunnels farther and farther out from shore — two, four and six miles — but sewage-polluted water has followed the extensions. With every severe wind storm blowing into the harbors of these cities, the filth lying on the bottom of the lake is stirred up and infects the water supply at the intake to a greater or less extent. The construction of storage reservoirs would have a very bene- ficial effect upon the sanitarj^ condition of the inland streams, but WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 71 for the lake cities there is no remedy for the impure and unhealth- ful condition of the harbors but the discontinuance of the practice of dumping raw sewage into the water. Scientific treatment of the sewage and the destruction of other city waste, now dumped into the lakes, is the only remedy for the unhealthful conditions which exist. On the inland streams, water released from storage in the summer time would greatly benefit the unsanitary conditions by the greater dilution of the impurities in those water courses — a result equal in importance to the prevention of floods. If the flow in summer is increased 50 or 100 per cent, or even greater, by the release of stored water, a corresponding sanitary improvement is sure to follow. While disposal works with septic tanks or filtration beds are the surest and most scientific methods known to us at pres- ent for rendering the sewage harmless and stopping the greatest of river pollution, yet this remedy majr be slow in being realized. Storage reservoirs for the improvement of the sanitary con- ditions of a river would naturally result in a benefit to any water powers which may exist upon the same stream and the reverse is equally true that the construction and operation of storage reser- voirs for water power development would have a direct and marked beneficial effect upon the sanitary condition of the stream. Irrigation With the increase of population, there naturally follows the increased consumption of food-stuffs and a growing demand for more land to be tilled. Lands held in reserve by the United States Government have been opened in enormous tracts for settlement from time to time and have been promptly taken up. There are other vast areas of rich soil in the country which would be settled as readily, but for the lack of water. It has been said that the United States is rapidly passing from an agricultural country to an industrial one, but the time will never come when agriculture on a large scale will not be followed. All workers must have food, and 72 CONSERVATION OF WATER the land must produce it. As the naturally watered lands are occupied and devoted to agricultural purposes, people have sought other territory for farms — hence the development of the great irri- gation projects which have been accomplished in the West during the past twenty years. Without the possibility of water storage in the uplands, many of these territories would never have been developed. Irrigation is applicable to extensive and intensive farming — the former on large tracts in the West and the latter on small farm and market gardens east of the Mississippi River. One of the largest irrigation projects of recent years, in the extensive class, is that just completed by the United States Rec- lamation Service on Salt River, in Arizona, of which the Roosevelt Dam is one of the principal features. This project has cost $9,878,521, and includes, besides the Roosevelt Dam, a masonry structure 220 feet high, and reservoir canals and ditches 34 miles long, carrying the water to a territory of 240,000 acres of as rich soil as any in the West. With this project, a power develop- ment of 4,500 horse power has been constructed and there is an ultimate power possibility of 18,650 horse power. The Salt River reclamation project is an example of what can be done by conserv- ing the waters of the mountains and using them on the dry, arid lands in the lower valleys. The land in the Salt River valley, which heretofore has been barren and unproductive, now jaelds an abun- dant harvest, and instead of being waste land, it is rapidly being turned into agricultural territory. Intensive irrigation, by small ditches and spraying, is appli- cable to small tracts of farming land which depend wholly upon the rainfall during the growing season. Irrigation accomplished in such cases is usually by a system of small storage reservoirs or water towers and distributing pipes and sprinklers, which are used at the critical periods when the rainfall is too light to meet the needs of the growing crops. A number of such small irrigation projects are now in successful operation in Ohio, New York, New Jersey and other Eastern states. WATER STORAGE FOR WATER SUPPLIES 73 A noteworthy case of intensive irrigation is the experiment made by Mr. Dell Titus on his truck farm near the city of Rochester, N. Y. Upon comparing the uniform success of the crops grown in his well-watered greenhouses with the varying and uncertain yield of his summer crops in the field, Mr. Titus determined to see whether he could not make extensive outside watering pay. He thereupon installed a pumping plant, water tower and an elaborate system of piping, at a total cost of about $3,500. The pump is operated by electric motor at a period in the night when the current is not required for other service. When the crops require watering, the valves are opened in the evening and a gentle artificial rain is produced over the irrigated area. Careful accounts kept upon the results following this method of irrigation show an annual return of 20 per cent upon the investment. A New Jersey farm of ten acres, irrigated in a similar manner by a system of piping and spraying, has made the owner independ- ent of the rainstorm. The yield on his farm since irrigation has averaged 100 per cent better than before and the vegetables, fruit and berries grown upon the farm command a high price and yield a handsome return upon the investment. There is, therefore, an opportunity for conserving the waters of the small farm streams as well as the water of the great rivers, and making them prove a benefit to the lands through which they flow. In conclusion, I desire to emphasize again the fact that con- servation of water for municipal water supplies, sanitation and irrigation is as important as conservation for the development of water power, and in these lines there are as good fields for engi- neering enterprise and the investment of capital as in any other branch of conservation work. CHAPTER V WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE In the four preceding lectures, we have considered the con- servation of water as a proposition of general interest to engineers and the public and also as to its relationship to water power devel- opments, municipal water supplies, sanitation and irrigation, and have taken a broad view of the situation in general. In this lecture we will consider the water resources of the State of New York as a concrete example of the meaning and value of such resources to a single state. The State of New York has been richly endowed by nature with resources of immense value and of these water is probably the greatest and most valuable one which she possesses. The people of New York State have a deep natural interest in the important economic problems which have been brought so forcibly to the attention of the American people through the agency of the conservation movement. This interest is particularly mani- fested at this time, because, in all probability, no state in the Union' is invested with conditions so favorable and opportunities so prom- ising for the early accomplishment of material progress in the proper conservation of one of its most valuable resources. In New York State, the surface water supply, as a natural resource, is second in value only to the land itself, which, indeed, owes its value largely to the existence of such an abundant natural water supply. It must be conceded that the value of water for potable and domestic purposes cannot be estimated in dollars and cents, constituting, as it does, a necessity of life for which no substitute exists. Its money value is represented by whatever it cost to obtain the supply, be that much or little. WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 75 Aside from all such conditions as these, water is practically the only natural resource within the State of New York for the development of power — that great and fundamental requisite to the prosperity and comfort of a civilized community. The State does not have enough coal of its own to operate its existing coal mines, say nothing of mining the whole of its valuable iron deposits, esti- mated at 300,000,000 tons. This condition is compensated for, in a large measure, if not altogether, by the fact that in addition to the existence of an abundance of water, the profiles of the streams and general topography of a large portion of the state are naturally favorable to the establishment of hydraulic power development and the construction of storage reservoirs for the regulation of the flow of streams. The year 1902 was notable in New York State, and in many other of the Eastern and Middle States, for its floods. In the spring, disastrous floods swept down the valleys of all the large rivers in the state, and most of the smaller ones, flooding the towns and cities along their banks, washing away many bridges and flow- ing over farm lands, leaving damage and destruction in their wake. It was conservatively estimated that over $3,000,000 worth of damage resulted in the state from the spring floods of that year. From all sections of the state, appeals for relief reached the legis- lature, which was then in session. An act was promptly passed creating a Water Storage Commission and directions were given to it to investigate and report upon the flood conditions, the amount of damage done, and the possible methods for controlling the streams. After a year's study, that Commission reported in favor of the creation of storage reservoirs as the only proper method of flood control and stream flow regulation. The floods of 1902 were not by any means the only floods from which the state had suffered, nor, perhaps, were they the most severe ones, but they were general all over the state and affected so many people that the necessity for doing something to prevent a recurrence of the resulting damage was urged upon the legislature. For a number of years previous to 1902, the owners of water 76 CONSERVATION OF WATER powers on the main rivers had been endeavoring to evolve some plan whereby the flood waters of the rainy season might be saved and stored for their use during the dry months of the year, but with one or two notable exceptions, no material progress had been made. Conservation had not then become the general movement that it now is, but the principles of conservation and the common laws of self-protection actuated the power owners in their endeavors to accomplish proper storage. The next step in the development of water storage and stream flow regulation was the creation of the River Improvement Com- mission in 1904. That Commission was invested with power to make preliminary surveys, maps, plans and estimates for the regu- lation of the flow of any stream the irregular flow of which should be shown to be a menace to the public health and safety of the com- munity. If the improvement of anj^ specific stream appeared to be of sufficient importance and the legislature approved, the Com- mission was authorized to carry out the project and to assess the cost thereof, according to the benefit received, upon the various municipalities and individual properties benefited. The working out of this plan has not been as satisfactory as was hoped for when the River Improvement Act was passed. The Water Supply Commission was then created, in 1905, the primary object of its creation being to insure an equitable apportionment of the sources of public water supply among the various municipalities of the state. The Commission was also directed to investigate the subject of a state system of water supply for cities and towns, with a view to determining if there was any possibility of the state building large systems of storage reservoirs, long aqueducts and distributing reservoirs, for the towns and cities in the thickly populated sections. Since the creation of the Water Supply Commission, it has passed upon 95 water supply projects, involving a contemplated expenditure bj- the applicant municipalities of over $250,000,000. The most important of these water supply projects is the Catskill Mountain reservoirs and aqueducts undertaken by the City of Xew WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 77 York, which, when completed, will be capable of delivering 500,- 000,000 gallons per day, through its 90-mile tunnel, to the city. The cost of this project is estimated at $175,000,000. In 1907, acting upon a recommendation in the first message of Governor Hughes, the legislature passed a water storage law, known as the Fuller Act, directing the State Water Supply Commission to "Devise plans for the progressive development of the water power of the state under state ownership, control and maintenance for the public use and benefit, and for the increase of the public revenue." When the Fuller Act became a law, the State Water Supply Com- mission promptly undertook the task assigned it, employed engi- neers and started surveys and investigations to comply with the requirements of that law. The further these investigations ex- tended, the more complex the problem became. It was found that instead of having to consider only conservation of water for power, a broader view must be taken to include the conservation of water resources for domestic use, for the protection of the public health and safety, and for navigation. We would like to present to you all the phases of this subject, but a single lecture will permit us to consider only water stor- age for power developments and flood control. We have already pointed out to you the value of water power in this electric age, but one more word in this regard will not be out of place. It is estimated that the unused water power in the State of New York has a value to the state equal to the coal fields of Pennsylvania. The value of wasted water powers has been conservatively placed at $15,000,000 per annum. The question is repeatedly raised as to why should not the State of New York develop its water powers by the construction of storage reservoirs, and thereby save to the manufacturers of the state the tribute they are now obliged to pay to the coal-producing states for the fuel used for the development of steam power. While the development of the now wasted water power in the State of New York would not eliminate the necessity 78 CONSERVATION OF WATER for steam power development, it would, however, result in an enor- mous saving in those industries where water power is used direct or where electric power may be used from transmission. The State of New York has an area of 50,000 square miles, and a population, according to the census of 1910, of 9,113,000. The value of the manufactured products in the year 1900 amounted to $2,179,000,000. The Empire State stands first among the states in manufacturing interests, in the capital invested, the number of persons employed, in wages paid, and in the products manufactured. The map on Plate 11 shows the principal watersheds of the state — those to the north and west draining into lakes Erie and Ontario and the St. Lawrence River; those to the east draining into Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, and those to the south and southwest draining into the interstate streams, the Dela- ware, Susquehanna and Allegany rivers. The state has great geo- graphical advantages for water storage and water power develop- ment. The Adirondack region, in the northeastern portion of the state, is the most prolific water-producing section we have. The mountains are largely covered with forests and in the valleys are numerous lakes out of which flow the power streams to the north- west, northeast and to the south. In this address we will consider only four of the large streams of the state, namely: the Niagara, Genesee, Hudson and Raquette rivers. Co-operative Work When the state undertook the investigations for water storage and power development, difficulty was experienced in getting reli- able data as to rainfall in certain sections of the mountainous coun- try and reliable stream-flow records on the principal power streams. A co-operative arrangement was entered into between the State Water Supply Commission and the U. S. Geological Survey in 1907, by which the Federal engineers have conducted the operations of stream gaging and rainfall observations, while the state has paid WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 79 the major portion of the expense of such investigations, and the work has been done under the supervision of the engineers of the Water Supplj^ Commission. This arrangement has proved very satisfactory, as the results of the work have clearlj^ shown. Water Powek Developments The chart on Plate 12 shows graphically the proportion of developed and undeveloped water power on the main streams, the Hudson River being the greatest power stream, exclusive of the Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers, which are international boundary streams and which cannot be considered as distinctly New York State power streams. The Hudson River has a possibility, with water storage developed, of 380,000 horse power, while only 185,- 000 horse power has been developed up to the present time. The Black River stands second with a possibility of 182,000 horse power and a development of a little over 90,000 horse power. The St. Lawrence River on the chart indicates little or no development and a limited possibility, but it refers only to that portion of the St. Lawrence River which is wholly within the borders of the State of New York and over which the State has entire jurisdiction as regards the water power. Were the total power of the St. Law- rence possible of development, it would probably exceed 1,000,000 horse power, but no development which contemplates the use of the whole or a large portion of the stream at any point can be undertaken without the consent of both the United States and Canada. In 1908 a complete water power census was taken, including all the power developments of 100 horse power and over and some as small as 25 horse power. This census developed the fact that there was 620,000 water horse power developed and in actual use in the state in that year and that, in addition, steam auxiliary plants with a total power possibility of 124,000 horse power had been installed to partially meet the deficiency in power during low water periods on the various streams. Plate 13 gives at a glance the situ- Plate 13 SCALE OF HORSEPOWER JOOfiOO, ,2.0(1000, JOQpOQ, ^i^OO.OOd DZVCLOPED-^ — UNDEVELOPED y/////u)^PEii:MUP%Q,i4//////y V///////////M BLACK V////////////////M ffAQUETTE 7/////////////A MOHAWK V////////////////7X ar, l/iwrence V777Z^ GENESEE W^ ^ARANAC CSLAWARE W^77?^ /fi/S/JBiB- ■^ OSW£G/17CHI£ WM STRETS/S ■^ SU6^U£N/p/VA//i Wi SALMON' MCesT E G/f/fSSS E C^/iT£AUG/fy. WATER- POW£R OF STREAMS V\IITHIN NtWVORV. STATE Plate 13 Growth mo Present Developmlnt OF YiflTER Power ,n new York 5t/)T£ Poss/si.£: OcvEL.oF'Mz.n-r 1900 This8Soooon.K^ ^ u.ou'3 s^ hour, 7 c^a y c^c/j a /I cfa. ti/< V/tSTei^ 'Waiver ivf/^ - out any auy.i-1 lai'y. /tbovefiyures fire. cxclt/y a co.n^/i/ei^ 82 CONSERVATION OF WATER ation as developed bj^ the Power Census of 1908. In addition to the census, a study was made of all the power possibilities on the principal streams and it was determined that with a comprehen- sive system of water storage reservoirs there was a total water power possibility of 1,500,000 horse power. It is thus seen that 880,000 horse power was going to waste in 1908. Since that date, several new developments and improvements on some of the older developments have been made so as to save a portion of this waste, and yet the possibilities of the state todaj^ are less than one-half developed. It is estimated that the value of the commercial inter- ests of the State of Xew York of this wasted power amounts to $17,600,000 annually. According to the figures given in the United States census in 1900, there is a possible total water power development in the United States of 5,300,000 horse power. New York stands first in the list with 1,500,000 horse power; California next with 446,000 horse power, while Massachusetts stands higher than either of these two states in the ratio of developed water power to the total power possibilities. NiAGAEA River The Niagara River having the inexhaustible supply of the Great Lakes behind it, is obviously in no need of storage works. It is only necessary to build head-race and tail-race works in order to take advantage of the power possibilities at Niagara Falls. The two great power developments at Niagara Falls are the largest in the state, having an aggregate installation of 230,000 horse power, with an actual daily output varying from 160,000 to 180,000 horse power. A treaty made between the United States and Canada for control of the water at Niagara Falls, permits a diversion of 56,000 cubic feet of water per second, of which 20,000 cubic feet per second is allowed to the power companies in New York State and 36,000 cubic feet per second allowed to those in Canada. I o p X fa I cu S o, ■3 a- I o I K < o o g - Plh W WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 83 The Hydraulic Power Company is the oldest of the present power developments at Niagara Falls and takes its water from the upper river through an open canal passing through the city to the top of the bluff 2,000 feet below the American Falls. The canal terminates in a large forebay, out of which the water is distributed to the various power developments strung along the bluff. Some of these developments are utilizing less than 100 feet of the avail- able fall, while the modern plants are taking full advantage of the total head of 216 feet. When this development was conceived many years ago, there were no turbine wheels capable of working under a greater head than from 40 to 50 feet, and wheels were installed discharging at various heights from the top of the bluff to the lower river level, a practice which has practically been dis- continued, and the water used to its full power value. When The Niagara Falls Power Company began its enormous development in 1890, hydro-electric developments in large units and electrical transmission of power was in its infancy, but since that day marvel- ous advances have been made and the Hydraulic Power Company has practically remodeled and enlarged its entire plant, bringing it up to date in many respects. The Niagara Falls Power Company began a modern develop- ment in 1890, consisting of a deep wheel-pit near the bank of the upi^er river in which are installed the penstocks and turbine wheels, and from which the tail water is led to the lower river through a tunnel 7,000 feet in length. In 1899, a second plant was under- taken by The Niagara Falls Power Company and completed in 1904, making a total installation in the two power houses of 105,000 horse power. The dynamos in these two power houses work under heads varying from 130 to 140 feet, and generate 5,000 horse power each. The three principal plans followed for the development of water power at Niagara Falls are portrayed in the four succeeding plates. The Niagara Falls Power Company, on the New York side of the river, and the Canadian Niagara Power Company adopted 84 CONSERVATION OF WATER the plan of a deep wheel-pit and a long tail-race tunnel as illus- trated on Plate 19. In this plan the water is led to the power house through a canal, then passes under submerged arches into the forebay, through the racks, and is led by a 7-foot penstock to the water-wheel near the bottom of the pit. The original water- wheels of The Niagara Falls Power Company were built without draft tubes, but all of the later wheels are furnished with draft tubes to take advantage of all the head that is available. The water- ra.3T. e O P c rt*. sr CLi^rof^ Hi Oif wheels are placed about forty feet above the bottom of the wheel- pit. The tail-race tunnel runs from the end of the wheel-pit to a convenient point below the cataract, discharging into the lower river. The net available head obtained in this manner is about 14-2 feet. The Toronto Power Company, located on the Canadian side of the river, follows a similar plan of development, but with modifi- cations in the manner of placing the draft tubes and the tail-race Plate 19 CANADIAN NIAGARA POWER CO. TORONTO POWER CO.LTD. g CR055-5ECTION OF POWER MOUSE. *moWMEEL PIT TORONTO POWER CO. 86 CONSERVATION OF WATER tunnels. In their plan, shown on Plate 20, the draft tubes lead into twin tunnels on either side of the wheel-pit which unite in a main tail-race tunnel a short distance below the lower end of the wheel-pit. This plan also permits the wheel case to rest upon solid foundation instead of being carried upon girders, as in the case of the Canadian Niagara Power Company's plant. t^T^fP^i^^:fJ=^T^?^F3^^^ HYDRAULIC POWER CO. The Hydraulic Power Company, situated upon the New York side of the river, has followed a different plan of development, as shown on Plate 21. In this case, the water is led from the Niagara River to a large basin near the top of the cliff, below the Falls. From the basin, the water is led through a forebay and racks into penstocks running over the edge of the cliff to a power house at the level of the lower river. Draft tubes are used in this develop- WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 87 ment, as in the others, but the tail-race is short and empties directly into the river. The water-wheel and dynamo run vertically, being direct-connected on a short horizontal shaft, while in the plants with deep wheel-pits the water-wheel and generator run horizon- tally, being direct-connected by a long vertical shaft. The Hydrau- lic Power Company, by its method of development, is able to develop power under the full available head of 212 feet. The Ontario Power Company, situated on the Canadian side of the river, has followed the same general plan of development as the Hydraulic Power Company, but under existing conditions relating to the location of the plant in the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park, the company has been required to place the conduits, penstocks and other appurtenances underground and as much out of sight as possible. The water for this plant is taken from the Niagara River through a diverting dam constructed at the head of the Canadian Rapids, passed into a forebaj^ thence through a gate-house into two 18-foot steel and concrete conduits and led through the Park, following the bend of the river, to a point about 300 feet below the Horseshoe Falls, where the conduits end in two large concrete surge tanks, or towers. From this point, the steel penstocks are constructed in shafts and tunnels to the power house placed below the cliff at the level of the lower river. A cross section of the power house, penstocks, conduits and tunnels is shown on Plate 22. The Ontario Power Company, by its system of develop- ment, generates power under a full head of 210 feet. The total amount of power now being generated at the several power plants at Niagara Falls is approximately as follows : The Niagara Falls Power Company (New York), The Hydralic Power Company (New York), The Canadian Niagara Power Company (Canada), The Toronto Power Company (Canada), The Ontario Power Company (Canada), Total, 105,000 H.P. 125,000 ii 50,000 ii 60,000 6i 100,000 ii 440,000 H.P. 88 CONSERVATION OF WATER Need of Regulation by Storage In determining the mean annual dependable rainfall in the state, it has been found necessary to examine a great many records, some of them extending back to 1829, and to analyze these records, determine their reliability or unreliability and to co-ordinate them with the records of the nearest surrounding stations. From a com- plete analysis and co-ordination of these precipitation records, the map on Plate 23 has been prepared. The mean annual depend- able rainfall is 38 inches and the range from lowest to highest is from 26 to 52 inches. The plain area on the map indicates the terri- tory within which the rainfall is below the mean and the hatched indicates the territory within which it is above the mean. The natural fluctuations in the flow of the streams of the state are vividly illustrated by the hydrographs on Plate 24, all three of them showing marked contrast between the wet and dry seasons. The Hudson River, having its source in the Adirondack Mountains, has a partial regulation from the forests and natural lakes tending to reduce the severity of the floods. There is, how- ever, inadequate natural storage for relief in the summer season when the power interests on the stream suffer greatly from the lack of water. The Oswego River has a material natural regulation due to the storage on the so-called Finger lakes — Cayuga, Sen- eca, Keuka, Canandaigua, Oneida and others. The hydrograph of this stream shows less severity of flood in the wet seasons and a better summer regulation than either of the other two streams. The Genesee River is the most flashy of any in the state. The rise and fall of the river is very rapid and the floods come in a sharp wave, rising from the normal to maximum flood discharge within twelve to twenty hours, and receding from the peak almost as rapidly as they rise. The watershed of the Genesee River is steep, almost entirely cleared of forests, and the land is used for pastur- ing, or is under cultivation. The waters run off of this watershed with little or nothing to retard the sharpness of the discharge. The natural fluctuations in the flow of the unregulated streams Plate 24 /0| HUOSOn RIVER MECHANICV/LLE TYPICAL NEWYOffK STffEAM. OSWCGO R/V£f=l BATTLE ISLAND L/NUSUAH-y 3TE/^OY STRE/IM HYDI?0G/7>^PHS 5H0I/V/Ng N/\TUff/\L FLUCTU/ir/OA/S OF FLOW NEW YORK STATE STREAMS 90 CONSERVATION OF WATER of the state are so great that they have become a serious menace to the success of many of the water power plants. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this point : At Hannawa Falls, on the Raquette River, a power develop- ment calculated to produce 13,000 horse power, has proved a par- tial failure, owing to the inability to develop more than from 3,000 to 4,000 horse power during the driest months of the year. The Genesee River, at Rochester, shows an equally marked variation between the flood and dry periods, the discharge at this point vary- ing from 200 cubic feet per second in September to 54,000 cubic feet per second at times in March and April. The Genesee Falls, in Rochester, have been fully developed and the demand for power is great, but in order to operate the plants and to meet the demand at least $200,000 worth of coal is burned annually to make up the deficiencjr in water power, while sufficient water runs to waste every spring to more than cover the shortage of the summer time. Genesee River To correct the great variations in the flow of the Genesee River and to eliminate the damage caused annually by floods and the shortage of water in the summer time, it is proposed to build an enormous reservoir above the Portage Falls, a little south of the center of the watershed. At this point, the Genesee River has cut a deep gorge in the limestone and shale and flows north over a succession of falls in Letchworth Park, where, in a distance of three miles, the fall is nearly 400 feet. The watershed above the proposed Portage Dam is 1,024 square miles, and the discharge of the river at this point varies from 98 cubic feet per second to 30,000 cubic feet per second. A view of Portage Falls at ordinary spring-flow stage is illustrated on Plate 27, and Plate 28 (frontispiece) shows the same place during a flood in 1909, when the discharge was 30,000 cubic feet per second. The dam which it is proposed to build at Portage is designed to be 800 feet in length, with a spillway dam, also 800 feet in length, 1^ A Pi 03 bJD w oj Ch Sh :-H O h 3f o -fl c !^ =4-. 1 o s -^ H '43 r^ -^ 2 3 hM "a o z o PL, 6h '" o O I fcfi O WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 91 extending along the side of the steep gorge at right angles to the main dam. The height of the masonry dam would be 152 feet at the center section and the bottom width at this point will be 115 feet. The top is 29 feet wide. The masonry will be cyclopean, with con- crete faces dressed to harmonize with the walls of the gorge into which the dam abuts. Ports are to be provided in the spillway dam for the control of the peak of floods. The capacity of the reservoir above the bottom level of the ports is 6,000,000,000 cubic feet and it is designed to retain this portion of the reservoir for flood con- trol. Gates are also to be provided in the dam, capable of dis- charging 3,000 cubic feet per second. When the floods come, the water is spread out over the surface of the reservoir, the ports begin to discharge and will continuously discharge only so much of the flood as can be kept within the banks of the river as it flows through the flat valley below the dam, between Mt. Morris and Rochester. The reservoir behind the Portage Dam will be 15 miles in length and an average of one mile wide. The depth of water will be 70 feet on the average and the total capacity 19,000,000,000 cubic feet. Under existing conditions, the floods rush through the Genesee Gorge unrestrained and spread out over a large territory of one of the most fertile valleys in the state, flooding from 20,000 to 30,000 acres of farm land every year, and in some years this territory is flooded in the spring and autumn. Views on Plates 29, 30 and 31 are typical of the conditions in the Genesee Valley below Mt. Morris and in Rochester during a flood of ordinary severity. Immediately below the Portage reservoir there is a power pos- sibility of 30,000 horse power, under a head varying from 360 to 450 feet, depending upon the amount of depletion in the reservoir. To accomplish this development, it will be necessary to construct a pressure tunnel 1^ miles in length under the hill forming the northern rim of the reservoir and ending at a point below the lower Portage Falls. The pressure tunnel plan is advisable for two reasons — one, to take full advantage of the total fall, and two, to avoid encroaching upon the propertj^ comprising the Letchworth Park, which is now a state park, having been presented to the state a3M0d-3Sa0H K S o '3 WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 93 of New York bj^ William P. Letchworth, with the condition that the property should be used for park purposes only. In addition to the power possibilities of the dam, the Portage reservoir would greatly add to the efficiency of the water power development at Rochester. With 30,000 horse power being devel- oped below the Portage reservoir and the power plants in Rochester taking advantage of the increased regulated flow, they will be able to run continuously all the year with 17,500 water horse power, and if they desire to continue the use of their steam auxiliary plant, 29,000 horse power could be continuously developed. A new method of demonstrating the power betterments by stor- age has been devised, which we call the "Power-percentage-of-time curve." In constructing the curve shown on this diagram, Plate 32, the first to be determined was the natural flow of the river. For this purpose the monthly discharges of the river, shown by the stream-flow records available, were arranged in a table in the order of their magnitude. From this table was computed the average percentage of time during which a given amount of horse power could have been developed from the natural flow of the stream. Using the result thus obtained (the percentage of time) for an abscissa and the corresponding amount of horse power possible of development as an ordinate, a point was determined and plotted. A succession of points was plotted for various horse power develop- ments and through this succession of points the cui've marked "Nat- ural flow of the river" was drawn. To determine the regulated flow curve, the existence of a storage reservoir and a practicable utiliza- tion of its waters was assumed. The power value of the regulated stream was then determined in a similar manner to the determina- tion of the natural flow of the river, and a succession of points plotted through which the "Regulated flow of river curve" was drawn. These curves show the percentage of time during which any desired amount of horse power can be developed at the point on the stream to which the diagram refers; also, what amount of power could be developed were the stream to be regulated by the construction of a storage reservoir on the upper watershed of the 94 CONSERVATION OF WATER stream. For example: Plate 32 shows the condition at the exist- ing power plants in the city of Rochester, from which we find that the present hj^draulic installation of 29,200 horse power can be operated with water from the natural flow of the river for only 59 per cent of the time in each year. This is determined by the point on the "Natural flow of the river curve," at its intersection with the horizontal line (equal to 29,220 horse power), and reading vertically below this point, approximately 59 per cent of time is found. In a similar manner, it may be noted that with the regu- lated flow of the stream this same installation could be operated with water for 85 per cent of the time. The power-increase from stored water is represented by the stippled area, which, when inte- grated, shows a value of 5,760 horse power j'^ears, or an equivalent of 5,760 horse power developed continuous^ for one j-ear. After regulation, only 390 horse power years per annum would have to be supplied by an auxiliary plant. This latter method of illus- trating the benefits to power plants seems to us to be more reason- able and accurate. Hudson River The watershed of the Hudson River above Troy contains 8,100 square miles, and the mean annual rainfall over this area is 43 inches, the highest being 52 inches and the lowest 38 inches. The discharge of the river at Mechanicville varies from 700 cubic feet per second to 70,000 cubic feet per second. It is estimated that to completely control the flood discharges on the Hudson River would require a system of storage reservoirs with a combined capacity of 120,000,000,000 cubic feet. Surveys have been made and reservoir sites located with a total possible stor- age capacity of 61,000,000,000 cubic feet. The water power plants on the Hudson River are capable of a total output of 170,000 horse power at the twenty-eight developed sites between Troy and Cor- inth. These plants utilize 380 feet of fall, and when the flow of water in the river is sufficient to run the mills the average output is WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 95 117,000 horse power. The average low water possibility is about 60,000 horse power and on some occasions it has dropped as low as 25,000 horse power for a period of from two to three days. The extent and importance of the mills on the Hudson River are illustrated by the views on Plates 33 and 34, being some of the largest paper mills and the Spier Falls plant of the Hudson River Electric Power Company in which the hydro- electric installation is 29,500 horse power. Sacandaga River Project The Sacandaga River is the principal tributary of the Hudson above the Mohawk River, and a reservoir on this stream is consid- ered to be the most feasible as the first unit of storage development in the Hudson River system. This reservoir would be created by the erection of an earth dam across the Sacandaga River at the hamlet of Conklingville. The dam as designed will be 1,200 feet long, 95 feet high, have a top width of 40 feet and a bottom width at the great- est section of about 500 feet. It is proposed to construct this dam by the hydraulic sluicing method. The dam will impound 32,000,- 000,000 cubic feet of water, of which only 29,000,000,000 cubic feet will be available for stream flow regulation. The lake created will be 30 miles in length and have a surface area equal to that of Lake George — 42 square miles. The cost of the reservoir, without power developed, will be $4,661,000. The regulated flow of the Hudson during the summer months will be 1,900 cubic feet per second at the minimum, and also add to the power plants on the river about 85,000 horse power annually. The chart on Plate 35 illustrates the power value of regu- lation from the Sacandaga reservoir by the "Power-percentage-of- time curve" method, as applied to the development at Spier Falls. The hydro-electric installation at this place is 35,000 horse power, which can be operated only 38 per cent of the time under present conditions. The Sacandaga reservoir would add 5,300 horse power years per annum, but in order to run the plant continuously 4,350 •a3MOd-3SaOH 133HM d a P4 a o O ft Ph rt S I a s WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 97 horse power years per annum would be required from some auxil- iary power. SCHROON RiVEE PROJECT The second largest project in the Hudson River watershed is at Schroon Lake, and contemplates the erection of a masonry and earth dam across the Schroon River at Tumblehead Falls. The dam as designed will be 600 feet long and 70 feet high, with a masonry spillway 400 feet long. The dam will impound 16,000,- 000,000 cubic feet of water, and create a lake with a surface area of 15,7QfO acres covering three natural lakes (Schroon, Brant and Paradox) to a depth of about 20 feet. The estimated cost of this reservoir is $2,000,000, and it will assure a minimum flow, when added to the Sacandaga reservoir, of 2,850 cubic feet per second and will add 50,000 horse power annually to the Hudson River plants. Raquette River The Raquette River rises in the Adirondack Mountains and flows westerly and northwesterly into the St. Lawrence River. There are large power possibilities on this stream between Tupper Lake and the St. Lawrence River, a distance of 75 miles, and although some of them have been fully developed, the larger portion of the possibilities still go unused. In 1869 a dam was built, with the consent of the state, at Settingpole Rapids, below the outlet of Tupper Lake. The dam was intended for lumbering purposes and the people who built it had so little regard for anything other than getting sufficient water to float their logs that no attempt was made to clear the reservoir site. The impounded water flowed over a large area of forest land, killed all the trees and turned a beautiful valley into a scene of desolation. The view on Plate 36 illustrates the result. It was claimed that the cost of clearing this reservoir site in 1869 would have been greater than the benefit to be derived by the lumber men from the erection of the dam. 98 CONSERVATION OF WATER It is estimated that the flow of the Raquette River can be con- trolled by the construction of reservoirs having a total storage capacity of about 19,000,000,000 cubic feet. The largest of these reservoirs would include Big Tupper Lake and the territory some fifteen miles in length above the outlet of Tupper Lake and would have a storage capacity of 15,000,000,000 cubic feet. The project would cost $2,250,000, and would add about 33,000 horse power to the plants already erected on this stream. It also would make possible an additional development of 110,000 horse power annually. A view in the vicinity of the proposed Tupper Lake dam is shown in the Plate 37, which illustrates, also, the great damage done in that locality by the erection of the Settingpole Rapids dam, creating a reservoir without properly removing the trees. This section of stump land covers an area of nearly four square miles, and were the Tupper Lake reservoir to be constructed, the entire area would be covered with water and the unsightly condi- tions completely removed. It is unsightly conditions such as these which have created a strong sentiment throughout the state against the construction of reservoirs in the Adirondack region. Persons who have viewed this situation form the erroneous opinion that all reservoirs would result in practically the same unsightly surround- ings. If, instead of building a dam at Tupper Lake village, one could be built above the outlet of Big Tupper Lake, a reservoir of 11,400,- 000,000 cubic feet capacity could be constructed at a cost of about $1,200,000. This site is known as the Oxbow and is illustrated on Plate 38. The hills at this point are much closer together than at the lower dam site, but as no rock foundation has been discovered the construction of an earth dam instead of a masonrj^ one becomes a necessity. One of the large developed powers on the Raquette River below these proposed reservoirs is at Piercefield, where the Inter- national Paper Company operates a large pulp and paper mill. Plate 39 illustrates the condition which the paper mill has to meet « H -J o WATER RESOURCES OF NEW YORK STATE 99 every year in the low water season. Great loss is entailed upon the Paper Company by the necessity of shutting down the mill, and a loss is also sustained by the operatives through the lack of employ- ment and a consequent cutting off of their source of income. A large undeveloped power exists at Colton Falls, about 30 miles below Piercefield and 15 miles above Potsdam. The river makes a long curve to the north, as it flows over a succession of falls and rapids, falling 260 feet in less than one mile — partly shown on Plate 40. The development suggested at this site is an open canal across the chord of the curve of the river, with a fore- bay on the top of the hill and long penstocks to a power house in the lower gorge. This power house would be 4,200 feet from the head gates at the top of the upper falls, and, with the regulated flow of the stream, the proposed installation would produce 30,000 horse power per year. The estimated cost of the Colton Falls development for 30,000 horse power, without taking into considera- tion the construction of reservoirs in the upper watershed, is $2,815,000. Under present conditions, the flow of the river at Colton Falls varies from 800 cubic feet per second in the low water period to 18,000 cubic feet per second during the flood periods. The lakes and forests in the watershed have a regulating effect upon the natural flow of the stream, but do not afford adequate storage. Conclusion The work done by the State of New York toward the realiza- tion of practical conservation of her water resources is an exempli- fication of what may be done by all other states equally favored by nature with valuable water resources, if they will follow the same policy as New York and take proper and timely action. '^ 9. I _^K^-f'. .'gvWJfcaMTfcWj. ^ !. .'^'■J''i' ■■:, ■•. 'IS p ^^^P^t I./ . ..EAJ ^1 ^ r; m ^■0 if.- ^ -^ ia . ^-'^i ■■'< ii--^'' j^ 4 "1 1 1 1 . ' '^ A *,' ^-^ ^^' /' / il ' a; il "*:4|f -••^ ,; ■' i 1 r .1% -. «» > . *te , ■^/; ^ ■ 4 ^ — I — m s. 1 ^W J-' -.^vi ' ■■■■ MR^VBii''' 1 ^^^H^^P^^' f^' ^A..iV^'^ H .;,.l^ ,- P\ -^'*C' f^ 5 I a p. o ">!r~«