With the cooperation of R. H. Suttie, Assistant Professor
of Civil Engineering, Yale University.

1. Description of System. The duty to provide a safe and satisfactory water supply is the first basic essential of municipal sanitation, For New Haven this obligation has been well met.

The city obtains its water supply by contract with a private corporation, the New Haven Water Company. This corporation began to develop its system in 1860 under the inspiration of Eli Whitney, pumping from Mill River at the "Point of Rocks" by water wheels to the reservoir near the head of Prospect Street, which is still in use.

The company now serves not only the city of New Haven but also a number of adjacent towns with approximate populations as indicated below.

These figures are based on the official census estimates for July 1,1927. They are probably low for certain suburban areas which have grown very rapidly in recent years but this error is perhaps balanced by the fact that outlying rural sections of many of these towns are not served. A population of 250,000 seems the safest basis for comparison.

The New Haven Water Company now controls eight sources of supply, as follows,-listed in geographical order from west to east.

The chief sources for the city of New Haven are Maltby, West River, Mill River and Saltonstall. In addition, Wintergreen and Prospect provide high pressure supply for certain elevated areas, while the Milford and Branford supplies serve certain outlying towns. The main distribution system of New Haven includes some 450 miles of pipe line, supplied by the four major sources (Maltby, West River, (Mill River and Saltonstall). The water mixes in the pipes near the center of the town and the proportion drawn from each source varies- with local conditions of flow and storage. The New Haven city water, except that from Mill River and Saltonstall, all flows by gravity.

2. Adequacy of Supply. The daily consumption is thirty million gallons; since the total storage capacity is 3773 million gallons, this amounts to about 126 days' supply. This figure is insufficient to provide a safe margin for possible dry periods, in fact at times in the past the city has actually been within thirty days of a water famine. The storage is altogether inadequate to allow for further increase in population. The Water Company began in 1925 to construct a dam on Crooked Brook and tunnels to develop large new watersheds in North Branford, Guilford, and Madison. The ultimate watershed area to be added amounts to fifty-two square miles and when completed, about 1932, the new storage reservoir will hold sixteen thousand million gallons. With this additional storage, New Haven will be ensured of an ample supply for a long period. The city is to be congratulated on the foresight shown in these provisions.

New Haven has in the past been notorious for wastage of water. Actual use in an American city does not average over sixty gallons per capita. When our survey was made ten years ago, New Haven's consumption was 180 gallons per capita, which meant that about two-thirds of the water supply was being wasted by leakage from street mains and through defective plumbing fixtures in homes.

The best remedy for water waste lies in the installation of water meters, which serve as an automatic check on waste in the household. Coupled with this should be careful inspection of street mains. Meters have been gradually and partially introduced by the New Haven Water Company. All services in the outlying towns are metered, while in the city of New Haven there were on December 31, 1926, 6517 meters out of a total of 23,927 services, or 28 per cent. All large consumers have meters, however, and all domestic services are regularly inspected and meters required if leaky plumbing is not repaired. By these means the consumption for the whole Water Company district has been substantially reduced to approximately 120 gallons per capita. This is not far in excess of the median value for a group of 33 American cities included in the last report of the American Water Works Association which shows a minimum of 56 gallons, a median of 114 gallons and a maximum of 275 gallons. Three comparable New England cities, with 97-100 per cent of their services metered show, on the other hand, much better results (Worcester, 90 gallons; Springfield, 91 gallons; Hartford, 96 gallons). Furthermore, while the average consumption for the whole Water Company district is 120 gallons, the consumption for the city of New Haven must be substantially higher, since the services of the city are only 28 per cent metered and those for the population outside the city are over 90 per cent metered. Believing that the total consumption for the city of New Haven could be reduced 25 per cent by the general installation of meters, we would strongly urge that steps be taken to attain this end.

3. Measures for the Protection of the Sanitary Quality of the Supply. The vital point in a public water supply is of course its sanitary quality,-the extent to which it is protected against the possibility of intestinal pollution New Haven had one disastrous demonstration of the risk from such a source in the typhoid epidemic of 1901 caused by the pollution of Lake Dawson, one of the West River reservoirs.

The New Haven Water Company owns some 36 square miles out of the total 93 square miles in its watersheds on the land which it owns it has carried out extensive and valuable re-forestation operations in cooperation with the Yale School of Forestry. No trespassing is permitted on the company property and fishing is allowed only on Lake Saltonstall and even there only under very definite restrictions.

The watershed area, whether under company or other ownership, is regularly patrolled by a force of men who use every effort to keep out any chance pollution, and thc lake foremen at the various reservoirs are constantly on the alert to safeguard the quality of the water. Even horse droppings along roadways near the reservoirs are systematically removed. The total population on the watersheds is not large, except in the case of the Mill River (Lake Whitney) supply, where there are some 10,000 people or 275 per square mile. On all the other sheds taken together, there are about 1000 people or 20 per square mile.

In spite of all precautions, it is today recognized that no surface water supply can ever be a safe source of drinking water without the intervention of a reliable process of purification. When the New Haven survey of ten years ago was made, only two of the city supplies were purified. Today, however, the Mill River supply is treated, first by slow sand filtration, through twelve quarter-acre beds (situated just below the dam on Whitney Avenue) and then by chlorination, while the other supplies are all stored and chlorinated. These treatment plants are well designed, carefully operated and entirely adequate to meet the needs of the situation.

There is one relatively minor point which seems to us still to require attention from both a sanitary standpoint and an esthetic standpoint. The filtered and chlorinated water from the Mill River supply, after being purified to a high degree, is stored in the open reservoir on Prospect Hill where its attractiveness may be impaired by plant and animal growth and where it is exposed to the slight but real possibility of pollution through trespassers and still more through the sea-gulls which may pass from the sewage-polluted harbor to this sheet of water. We believe that this open reservoir should be replaced by a covered one, which might possibly be located on Mill Rock ridge, and which would give additional high pressure service.

4. Laboratory Examination and Results. The Water company maintains an excellent laboratory at the filter plant and daily chemical and bacteriological examinations are made of all supplies before and after treatment, (some 8000 samples a year being examined). The City Health Department also makes its own analyses about thirty times a year and the State Department of Health examines samples at intervals of one to two months.

There appears to have been a certain discrepancy between the results obtained by these three laboratories in the past and neither the City nor the Water Company Laboratory has used the most recent standard procedure. These differences have now been adjusted and check results were obtained in two series of tests run in parallel at our request, during the months of December and January. The Water Company results and those obtained at the State Laboratory agree closely. For 1926 they were as follows, indicating that the water was of excellent quality

5. Appraisal Score. Since the water from all sources fully meets the Appraisal Form standard of quality and since the public water supply is delivered to the homes of 99.6 per cent of the population, the city receives a full score of 40 points on this item.

6. The Problem of Public vs. Private Ownership. It is somewhat anomalous that a city of the size of New Haven should continue to obtain its water supply from a private company. Of 45 cities having populations of over 125,000 for which data were presented in a recent tabulation, 40 operate their own waterworks, (the exceptions being Bridgeport, Louisville, Oakland, New Haven, and Paterson). The contract with the Water Company expires in 1928. The city must either renew this contract for another twenty-five year period or purchase the property of the company, as it has the right to do. This has been a very live problem during the present winter.

The question involved here, is as we see it, purely an economic one. The supply provided by the New Haven Water Company has, in recent years, been of excellent quality and the entire policy of the company, from an engineering standpoint, has been wise and progressive. The powers of the State Health Department should be ample, in any case, to ensure a safe supply in the future. On the other hand it seems absurd to doubt the ability of the city to manage its own water supply with efficiency, in view of the almost universal experience of other American cities. There are two questions involved, first whether the State Public Utilities Commission can be relied upon to protect the city against exorbitant rates in the future and, second, whether with a reasonable return to the investors in the company the necessary cost of duplicating financial and legal services involved in private operation and the capital charge on progressively mounting property values is or is pot overbalanced by the economies of operation involved in private as compared with municipal management. These are questions for the financier rather than the sanitarian.

Subsidiary Supplies. According to estimates of the City Health Department there are not over 100 dwellings in the city which are not connected with the public supply. This is an excellent record. Nevertheless the private supplies used by these hundred families are not without their health significance. It is also estimated that some 100 wells are used for auxiliary purposes by various industrial concerns and some of these may be sources of drinking water. We believe that the City Health Department should conduct a canvass of this situation, shoulc1 determine the sanitary quality of these subsidiary supplies and should make certain that any which may prove dangerously polluted are eliminated.

In spite of the excellent quality of the city water supply there is still a considerable sale of spring water in New Haven. The State Dairy and Food Commissioner informs us that five leading firms sell annually an amount totaling over 650,000 gallons in the city. Even in City Hall spring water is regularly purchased. It is impossible that spring waters can be any safer than such a public supply as that of New Haven, although their sanitary quality is supervised by the Dairy and Food Commission. The practice of using such waters is distinctly to be deprecated as a need less economic waste and a possible Health hazard in a city with such a good public supply as ours.

8. The Problem of Fire Pressure. The problem of deficient fire pressure in New Haven has received considerable attention from fire insurance companies and should be mentioned here, in spite of the fact that it is essentially an economic rather than a sanitary one.

The last edition of "Water Works Practice" says in regard to this point,

"The trend today is toward higher normal pressures. In recent years, a number of the larger cities have materially increased their pressures, notable among these being New York, Newark, Jersey (City, Springfield, Mass., Buffalo, Providence, Louisville and New Orleans.

"A normal static pressure of 60 to 75 pounds per square inch is now considered desirable, presenting the following advantages:

(a) It will supply ordinary consumption for buildings up to 10 stories in height.

(b) Gives effective sprinkler service in buildings of 4 or 5 stories.

(c) Permits direct hydrant-service for a few hose streams, insuring quicker operation by the fire department.

(d) Allows a larger margin of fluctuation in local pressures in meeting sudden drafts, and offsets losses due to partial clogging or excessive length of service pipes."

In New Haven the general pressure is necessarily determined by that of the lower reservoirs since the water mixes freely in the pipes. The Prospect Hill, East Haven (Saltonstall) and Cheshire (Prospect) reservoirs are at elevations which would make possible maximum pressures of between 55 and 62 pounds per square inch (computed from reservoir to sea level) and actual pressures are considerably less on account of frictional loss.

The National Board of Fire Underwriters recommend that pressures in New Haven be increased to provide adequate automatic sprinkler supply in buildings five stories high. This means an average in the heart of the city of approximately 50 pounds pressure, or an increase of about 15 pounds over and above existing pressures. This is in line with the plans of the New Haven Water Company, which contemplate, by reconstruction or replacement, the elimination of certain of the existing reservoirs so as to permit of this much needed increase of pressure.

9. Summary and Recommendations. On the whole, New Haven is to be congratulated on the possession of a water supply of high sanitary quality which should be ample to care for future development with the completion of the North Branford reservoir.

Four minor recommendations only seem to be indicated as follows.

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