LONDON'S WATER SUPPLY

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 8 November 1912, Page 6

LONDON'S WATER SUPPLY

1 On tho average, every Londonjr use,s thirty-one gallons of water n day. tho total daily consumption in the summer being 2o0.00(),000 gallons sufficient to float several Dreadnoughts. The supply i s obtained from four sources—(l) The rivers Tlianus and Lee ; (2) gravel beds adjoining tKThnines and at Hamworih: (3) natural springs; (!) wells sunk in the Lee Valley and in Kent. With the exception of the supply obtained in Kent all the water lias to be carefully filtered, and as more than half the total supply is drawn from the Thames the great storage rosorvons are. along the course of that river. They cover an area of 1(87 acres and j hold 8,913,000,000 gallons of wafer. ,' Early next yonr another great reservoir will )>o opened at Chingford. ft will cover 110 acres and hold witfourteen million tons of water. From the great reservoirs for tin filtered water the, precious fluid runs over vast filter beds, of which there am : 171, and is then stored in eighty sivvice. reservoirs. To pump the water from tho place- great engines h.iv* '. j heen installed with an aggregate' r,C j 38,380 horse-power. Distributing,the I supply throughout' the lnotropeliiau area, is another great task, rerniirir.g 6307 miles of piping. London 'is growing so rapidly that the Waver Board has ever to keep in mind the requirements of the future. Tts officers estimate that in 10-11., London will have a population of twelvo tn'.l i lions, and that this will necessitate a I supply of 300,000.000 gallons of water a. day from the 'Humes. |. ; s r0 „. ceivahlo that in time the demand will exceed tho supply obtainable from the present sources, 'and then the engineers will have to find some new mc-.ar-of providing, the city with the irreai necessary of life. A sure and adequate supply is required, not o:i!v for consumption ami fire subjection hut also for manufactories and sanitary purposes. The gas and ele'c j iic supplies am dependent on it, and , any serious breakdown in the system would throw thousands of inon>cu of employment.