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The expert commission which was appointed to examine into the question of the available sources of water supply for New York city, and the best methods of conserving and utilizing the same, has made a preliminary report to the Board of Estimate. The commission states that in spite of the decrease in the waste of water by consumers in New York, it is necessary, in view of the rapid growth of the city, that steps be taken immediately to secure a larger supply. According to the preliminary estimate of the eminent engineers who have made this investigation, immediate provision should be made for storing and introducing into the city an additional daily supply of 200,000,000 gallons, to be delivered by gravity at an elevation of 300 feet above mean tide level. The cost of this portion of the scheme, including the necessary dams and aqueduct, will be 50,000,000. Acting on the advice of the Corporation Counsel, the investigation was confined entirely to those streams of water which lie within the State of New York, and the commission discovered that there are three available sources of supply. First, from, certain of the eastern tributaries of the Hudson; secondly, from a portion of the eastern tributaries combined with the headwaters of Esopus Creek on the easterly side of the Catskill Mountains; and, thirdly, by pumping and filtering water taken from the Hudson River, at a point a few miles above Poughkeepsie. Although any one of these sources can be developed to maintain a constant supply of 500,000,000 gallons daily, the Commissioners are unanimous-in recommending the upland watersin preference to water taken from the Hudson River, although they admit that thelatter can be. made pure by filtration and, indeed, must be re- gardedJlfl the ultimate reserve for the- demands of the more disti future. It is recommended that in any case the city begin at olce. the construction of filters, Wth for the present Croton water supply I!,nd for all other waters taken from surface streams. -The surveys upon which the report is based include about.125 miles of aqueduct location extending from Jerome-,.Park reservoir to the site of the proposed reservoirs,; and comprising 80 miles of surface aqueduct following the contour of the ground. 40 miles of aqueduct , in tunnel, and about 5 miles of large steel pipe siphons. Although the works that it is recommended- to put in hand at once contemplate an additional stj-pply of not over 200,000,000 gallons a day, for obvious reasons the aqueduct has to bt'.built of suicient size to accommodate the ultimate 500,000,000 gallons daily capacity of the larger. scheme, when it shall have been fully developed. The controlling feature as regards speed of. construction will be the great line of aqueduct; and as this will take ..t least five years to complete, it is recommended that immediate steps be teken to initiate this. greatly needed work. The conclusions of the report will be found in full in the current issue of the Supppkent. The recommendation that immediate steps be taken to increase the water supply of New York is one that will commend itself to every one who has studied the situation: The present margin of consumption over supply is none too large; and when it is, remembered that New York adds to itself every year a population equal to that of a first-class city, the urgency of the case is at once apparent. Whatever is done should be done on the most liberal scale. It has too often transpired that water supply provisions that looked over- bountiful when .hey were projected, have proved meager in proportion to the ever-accelerating growth of thO municipalities that they supply. This 500,000,000- gallon aqueduct looks like a gigantic scheme; but the .growth of this city is gigantic; and it-would- take a :bold prophet to set a limit to water demands of the fhture metropolis of th'1 world.
