Covered Reservoirs

Covered Reservoirs

The tendency in modern water works engineering practice is toward the covering of reservoirs. There are two general reasons for the preference for the covered storage reservoir. The first is the obvious one, that contamination of the water from foreign substances entering into it, such as human pollution, animal carcasses, droppings of birds, possible surface drainage, etc., is apt to occur. In an open reservoir any or all of these means of contamination are possible and even probable. In fact the figures presented in the paper by the water works engineers of the canal zone on page 1043, show that such pollution is almost certain. The covering of the reservoir, on the contrary, seals it against risks of this kind and insures a comparative freedom from dangerous germs and from plant life which renders the water, to say the least, unpalatable and unpleasant to use.

第二个reason, while less obvious, is fully as important, and it is to be found in the fact, well demonstrated, that injurious germs, algae and other life, will not live long in water from which the sunlight is excluded. While the first cost of covering the reservoir is a little more than the building of one which is uncovered, the advantages of the former are so great that the small added expense is money well invested in relieving the danger of pollution, not to speak of the wear and tear on the nerves of the water works superintendent.