522 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



every street, and a vastly important question is raised not only 

 as to the source of the water supply, but as to the sewage dis- 

 posal. 



With an ample upland water supply for the entire State 

 assured, we may consider a little further the most practicable 

 form of sewage disposal to be applied in New York. The ma- 

 jority of the streams are already so far contaminated as to make 

 their use for water supplies undesirable, the more especially as 

 it is entirely practicable to obtain uncontaminated upland 

 sources of water supply without prohibitive expense. In many 

 cases, several towns will join together for the construction of a 

 conduit and in order to harmonize the various interests, a State 

 commission should take charge of the construction. 



The writer fancies that in many cases purification of sewage by 

 dilution will be sufficiently effective even when the population 

 of the State shall have reached 20,000,000, and in other cases, some 

 different form of purification may be used. For satisfactory 

 results by dilution, there should be in the stream about 4 cubic 

 feet per second for every 1000 of the population. For Mohawk 

 river, when the population of the valley reaches 1,000,000, this 

 would mean a flow in the stream of 4000 cubic feet per second. 



The minimum flow at the present time is for short periods 

 occasionally as low as 0.1 cubic foot per second per square mile, 

 although such flows continue for only a few days and would 

 hardly apply in discussing sewage disposal. 1 For present pur- 

 poses, we may take the low water flow at from 0.25 to 0.3 cubic 

 foot per second per square mile, or at about 1000 cubic feet per 

 second for the flow of Mohawk river at its mouth. The balance 

 of the 4000 cubic feet per second must be furnished by storage, 

 which will again provide the water power for driving a consider- 

 able proportion of the manufacturing establishments of the valley. 

 3000 cubic feet per second furnished from storage is as much as 

 can be practically developed. Hence, when the population of 

 Mohawk valley reaches about 1,000,000 some other plan must be 

 adopted, but up to that point, the writer considers that the pref- 

 erable plan is 1o go to the neighboring highlands for uncontam- 



! For minimum flows of Mohawk river in detail, see tables on pages 400-10, 

 together with statements on pages 508-9. 



