Water Bureau Able to Buy Liberty Bonds

Water Bureau Able to Buy Liberty Bonds

The municipal water plant of Portland, Ore., represents an investment of more than $20,000,000. The cash receipts of the bureau of water works in the past 31 years totaled $21,442,857.07. Of this amount $13,985,927.31 was for water sold. The rest was derived from the sale of bonds and miscellaneous sources. Expenditures during the same period amounted to $21,254,117.70. Of these expenditures $1,207,418.76 was for the purchase and improvement of private water plants; the gravity system accounted for $5,608,353.47; the extension of mains, etc., took another slice of $5,540,950.23; meters, tools, materials, etc., on hand cost $149,167.54. All of these items aggregate $12,505,892.09, the present value of property owned by the plant exclusive of land and other real estate. The other expenditures were for operation and repairs, interest on bonds, sinking fund payments and miscellaneous items. The bureau holds, in addition to other property not enumerated and no estimate of the value of which has been made. Liberty bonds to the amount of $75,000. Two great steel conduits capable of carrying from 65.(XX),(XX) to 67,500,000 gallons every 24 hours bring the water by gravity from Bull Run river, a distance of 24 miles. The storage capacity of the 20 reservoirs and standpipes of the system is 192,804,000 gallons. There are 755.34 miles of water mains in use in the distribution system. Of these 589.20 are four inches to 30 inches in diameter. Mains under four inches in diameter total 166.13 miles. The main supply conduits, which include one 52-inch lock bar tube 56.29 miles. These include two submerged mains under the Williamette river, one being 24 inches in diameter and the other 30 inches. The storage capacity of Bull Run lake, from w'hich rises Bull Run river, is 2,500,(XX),000 gallons.

The citizens of Newbern, Tenn., were recently without water from the city works, for several days, owing to the installing of a new 10-inch well at the plant.