Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the Colony on the public health ... / Cape of Good Hope.
- Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). Department of Public Health.
- Date:
- [1906]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the Colony on the public health ... / Cape of Good Hope. Source: Wellcome Collection.
10/300 page 6
![k Vl In England this matter of holding a careful enquiry by the Local Government Board is considered a most important principle, and1 is one which is never neglected, even in the case of very small works for local improvement, A sharp contrast is in this presented to the happy-go-lucky manner in which extensive expenditure is entered upon by local authorities in this Colony. This Department, so far as it is concerned with local public works, is with the sanction of the Minister attempting to effect im¬ provement in this matter, by the introduction, with the assistance of the Department of Public Works, of a recognised system of dealing with such projected works, and to this end in every recent case when the approval of the minister has been sought for the undertaking of any scheme under the Public Health Acts, an enquiry has been held into it by a Medical Officer of this Department in association with an Engineer of the Public Works Department. Some Examples of Local Permanent Works. It may be of interest to give here a few illustrations of the effects of the lack of system I have described. In doing so, I wish it to be clearly understood that I make no reflection on the Iona fides of the local authorities concerned, nor on their technical advisers: — Water Supply of the Municipality of Adelaide. In 1898 the Municipality of Adelaide took into consideration the question of undertaking a scheme of domestic water supply, and for that purpose engaged the services of a Consulting Engineer, who, in November of the same year, furnished a preliminary report and designed a scheme estimated to cost £11,723. In a subsequent report, dated November of the following year, he estimated the cost ah £13,200. On the 17th December, 1903, the Municipality obtained a loan. of £14,000 from the Government under “The Local Works Loans Act 3' for the purpose of carrying out this scheme. The scheme was completed in February, 1905, at an actual cost of £15,703, the additional outlay being met by a loan of £1,500 at 6 per cent, raised on a mortgage of the Town Hall. The scheme, in its essential details, consists of a weir across the Koenap River at a point about 5^- miles above the town. Behind the weir and in the actual bed of the river a filter was constructed^ the water being led from this into a small intake well, from which an 8-inch cast iron pipe, capable of delivering 250,000 gallons per diem, is led. This main, after crossing the bed of the Koenap River at severabpoints below the weir, discharges into a service reservoir just above the town, having a capacity of 250,000 gallons. The hydraulic fal];between the weir and the reservoir is 32^ feet. I have no knowledge of the enquiries made by the Government prior, to granting the loan in 1903, but the scheme as carried out con¬ tained two grave and inherent defects, these being the filter con¬ structed in the bed of the river above the weir and certain of the river crossings at which the pipes were laid on founda - tions composed of sand or silt. Soon after the scheme was finished, it was found that the water would not flow into the pipes connecting the filter with the intake well, and an opening had to be made through the clay seal in the upper end of the filter bed. After this it was found that the water was too low to flow into the pipes, and the Municipality had for several months to pump the water up into the intake until the occasion of the first](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31482028_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
