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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 1909)
f DIRT FLIES ON CITY'S NEW RESERVOIR SYSTEM -t : - . . - ..., 4 l,OOKI(i "IT OVKR SITK OK I.OWKR KiiKKVOIK AO. . D IRT Is flylnc up on Mount Tabor, and , wonderful rwervolr system la com ing Into being couth of Tabor i Heights at Mount Tabor Park. Mn and . tun and steam nhovels nill race aealnat ' time all thia Winter and Spring and part c.f next Summer, scooping out yawning holes In the ground and building strong . oarth and concrete embankment around them, no that Portland may have more wntor. Ronda have been aold by the city to ' ray for two gigantic new storage reser voln to hoM. one 50.OuO.OPO gallons, the other 73.orVw gallons. When this work . V done. Portland will have nearly dou- bl the water in storage there is now. ami . will b- able to supply a city of 30U.OUO for ' a week and more In case of accident to the Bull Ron pipeline. Portlands water supply Is adequate now. In fact, there Is being wasted every ly some 4.O0O.OUP gallons that goes Into the sewer over the weir of the old res ' ervoir on Mount Tabor. But there is not enough storage capacity to take care of the city's needs much more than three days in an emergency, and in Summer ' time parts of the Rast tilde suffer be cause the supply In the malnj Is not i enough for every -Jay use. And Portland i Is growing at a rapid rate, and will need : more and more water. When the new .project la completed, however, the city -an live a week without a drop of water ' coming from the mountains. Fcmr Reservoirs at Present. At present there are four reservoirs, the total capacity of which Is about 66. oii.Ci.l gallons. Of these No. 1 Is on Mount Tabor, near where the new onee will be built: No. 2 Is In South Mount , v.,..-.'. " VW. f (' . tjTrtjr a 7os&? Gas Tabor. at the intersection of the Section IJne road and West avenue, or East Six tieth street; Nos. 3 and 4 are in the City Park. Nos. 5 and S are to be built near .Xo.,1. forming with Noa. 1 and 2 a sys tem equal to any on the Coast, at a cost to the city of 1447.000. Nature has aided in the work of cpn truetlng the upper of these new storage ; tanks. In the hills of what was at one time the Prettymnn donation land claim. later called the Hosford tract, and still l later In part the Pittock tract, she has j hollowed out a huge basin. This will be ' still further scooped out. lined with con crete, stopped up with a 60-foot dam at the lower end. and when- it Is all done, ' the oval tank will be the new No. I res I ervoir. TOO feet long and 460 feet across, i The rim of thU bowl Is to be 440 feet ' above Portland's base, which is approxl- mately sea level. The bottom will be 30 feet above the base. To scoop out the hole for the water, about 210.000 cubic ! yards of earth will have to be removed. ' enough to make a mound on a cKy block I 14 feet high. Then something like 7E0 cubic yards of i concrete masonry must "be put in an amount which would build sidewalks six I Inches thick on both sides of Hawthorne ' avenue from the river to Fiftieth street. Park to IV Made on Hills. When this reservoir is all finished. It will be one of the show places of Port land, for the city owns land on the hills around the basin, and it is understood the intention is to make a park of this property. At the top of the containing wall will be a driveway, or Derm, around the oval. 30 feet wide, with a coping two feet high on the Inside, and from the I outer eflre of this drive a rolled erabank t nient will rise to the top of the hills. The lower reservoir, .No, t, is to be to z j ? - J .v' rzus nf jck.o the form of a rectangle, and In this, aa in the other, nature has helped the con tractor. The site for this basin is a flat space, now given over to berry patches and orchards. To hold the 75.000,000 gal lons of water which will flow into it from No. 6, the upper reservoir, a wall varying from 135 feet in thickness at the bottom to ten feet at the top will be built of earth and lined with concrete. This embankment will be 36 feet high, probably, but It has been proposed to lower this basin ten feet. In which case a large amount of excavatins: will be nec essary. This point will be settled by the Water Board. On the back wall of this lower reser voir will be a 30-foot roadway, narrowing to ten feet on the sides and on top of the front wall. Steps will lead to the top of the wall from the center of the West avenue side, which Is the front. More digging- and building will be necessary here than on the upper basin even, for 330.000 cubld yards of earth must come out, and 13.P30 cubic yards of concrete masonry will be needed. Vast Anionnt of Excavation Needed. If the Oregonlan building and the Meier & Frank building were placed across the street from each other, the earth taken from this reservoir would fill the space between them five times, even with the tops of the buildings, and there would still be enough left more than to fill the tower of the Oregonlan building from the street to the top. The concrete would make a solid mass nine feet high If placed on a city block, or a single stone larger than the Arlington Club building. No. S reservoir is .to be 8H feet long by 633 feet wide, inside measurements, so that If one walked clear around the top of the wall, he would have to go more than half a mile. The surface of the " rjr. . v: - . ..... 1 ' 4 v " f x - . m. . .. . ' "i xrf. v .. . V-x.'' X . -x. . ... - T' ' x.:.- '-'"X 'xl.' r:r;h;- :ri kvv M sx- . v ,.fV.. '- r -yut A' i7 fr '3 . : ' .... II 'Mm - 'it U . iOj$ii ii' a x . 7 rw 1J. .x, J . x-ixnW.) ' ' -'xAf v .r ..t WW BOX J.? "A ?j rt ' r r u JXV ..... -.y.. J 7, y f -V"'-, . y-A . . .( ? " r- '-.r -: 1 Men and Teams and Steam Time to Give Portland More Water. b id mi ai water will form a lake of 12S acres, or two square miles. Walking along West avenue, or -East Sixtieth street, at the foot of the retaining wall, one will have a Journey of 970 feet. Last week Robert Wakefield & Co. and the Pacific Bridge Company, which have the contract to construct these reser voirs, started on their race against time to get them done, for by the terms of the contract the upper reservoir, or No. 6, must be finished by July 1,' 1910. and No. S must be ready for the water to be turned in by October 31. 1910. Hurry is an essential feature in this work, for if delays occur, so that No. 6 is not com pleted by July 1, the contractor must pay a penalty of t.50 each day up to July 15, when this amount will be in creased to $500 a day. Bonus for Speedy Work. " If No. 6 Is not done by October 21, a penalty of $250 a day is teed. On the other hand, if the work is finished ahead of time, for every day before July 1 that No. 6 is ready for water, the contractor Is to get $260, and if the -remarkable speed is attained to complete this basin before June 15, an addiitonal bonus ol $250 a day is to be allowed. The specifi cations for this -big work were prepared under the supervision of D. D. Clarke, City Engineer. So early last week men and teams be gan the work of clearing the ground on the site of No. 6. Soon the steam shovels will gouge out the dirt. All the trees and brush have been removed, and some buildings have been torn down. Others that happened to be In the way will be moved to" locations beyond the walls. Portland's onward march will brook no interference from her cltisens, and. those that happen to be In the way must get out. The bouse known as the "old Plt- Shovels Begin Race Against tock house. which Ftooa on a hill at the left as one looks up the gorge where the dam will be. Is to be torn down. Two other houses on the other side will be moved. One of these has been occupied by E. T. Peterson, a son-in-law of Kev. C. O. Hoeford, who owned part of the land the reservoirs will occupy, and who built the "old Plttock house." Several bams and smaller buildings have had to go to make way for the contractor. A wonderful storage system this will be when it is completed. Water will flow from each higher reservoir to the one lower, but each will be independent ot the others, so that In an emergency it can be disconnected, as It were, and be used by Itself. From Bull Run the water Is taken through ten miles of 42-Inch pipe, eight miles of 35-lnch and six miles of 3l-lnch pipe into reservoir No. 1, which holds 12,000.000 gallons. With about K 000,000 gallons coming In every day, this basin is continually overflowing, so that 4,000.000 gallons go every day Into the sewers. Plenty of Water Sure. From No. 1 a tunnel will be built 6K feet long and three feet wide, leading northwest into No. 6. After No. 5 Is filled, with Its 60,000,000 gallons, the flow will pass through pipes laid In a conduit ten feet wide under the dam into No. S, which will hold TE.000,000 gallons. This tank also ha a pipe leading from No. 2, which lies to the south, so it may be filled from that also, which, in turn, is filled from No. L No. 6 will have out let into the large main In West avenue, which supplies the high-pressure system on the East Side, taking in the belt of the Mount Tabor district. Rose City Park, the Montavllla district, Barr road. East Thirty-third street of Highland, part of i Irvington and Holladay Park, then north west to Upper Albina and the Peninsula. Reservoir No. 2 supplies the low-pressure service of the East Side, but if No. 2 should give out, this can be filled from No. 6. A bypass arrangement also in sures water from No. 6 if an accident should befall No. 6. And what does all this mean to Port land? Simply that no clly on the Coast will have a better water system. Seattle Is building reservoirs that will afford a supply nearly equal to that of Portland, while Los Angeles and San Francisco have yet to construct their gravity sys tems from the mountains. The present reservoir capacity of the city Is &6.000.000 gallons, while the two new basins add nearly double this amount. When .all Is completed, Portland will have something like 200,000,000 gallons of water In stor age. Just now every person in the city Is using about 80 gallons a day, or a total of about 18,000.000 gallons In normal weather. With only 6,000,000 gallons on hand, a break in the supply pipe would mean a water famine In less than four days. So the dirt Is flying up on Mount Tabor, and a wonderful reservoir system Is com ing Into being. Sentenced. New York Times. "What ye up fr!" Squire ays h: "Matrimony." ays Hank Lee, Blushln' red ex he c'd be. ' "Stand up closter!" Squire, says he; "Jlne hands llRht. an' look at me! Sary Wllklns. what's er plea?" "Speak up louder!" Squire says Ire. "Life imprisonment '11 be Sentence passed on both o' ye." "At hard labor!" Squire, says he. "Bailiff, let lh' prisoners be Held, awaltln' shlwareel" "An' ten dollars," Bquira. says he. "Ker the court that sentenced ye Next offender! .Who'll it bar'