HH62/2/RENFRE/39

Transcription

[Page] 38

Most pressing was the case of Neilston. Standing at a level too
high to be supplied with water from the Gorbals Water-works, it
was dependant for its water-supply upon public or private wells, all
of them more or less polluted. Efforts had been made in vain to
secure a public water-supply, and when the County Council came into
office the practical assets (?) of the Water District Committee were
an area so straggling, yet circumscribed, as to render it impossible to
supply it at an economical rate, and a debt of over £200 incurred in
preliminary legal and engineering expenses; while the village was no
nearer a water-supply than ever. Largely through the intervention
of Mr. Renshaw, the water from the 'Lady Well,' or 'Aboon the
Brae Spring,' has become available, and in the course of the year
1891 a scheme was adopted for conveying the water of this copious
spring, alleged to run equably in wet seasons and dry, to a distribut-
ing tank of 200,000 gallons capacity, estimated to contain five days'
supply for the village, and situated at an elevation of 550 feet. The
daily consumpt of the village is estimated by the engineer at 37,500
gallons, while the estimated supply from this source is estimated at
only 38,000 gallons per diem. It is thus evident that there is but a
narrow margin between supply and demand, and difficulties arising
from this circumstance are to be anticipated. But the matter of
water-supply was, as will appear from what I shall have to record
under the heading 'Prevalence of Infectious Diseases in 1891,' so
urgent, that no other course was open to the Committee than to
accept this scheme. The water is so pure that it does not require
filtration. The contract has been let at £3,147, and it is anticipated
that the water will be available for the supply of the village by mid-
summer, 1892.
The village of Newton-Mearns, too, is very badly off in respect of
water-supply, and any extension of the feuing area at Giffnock is
rendered impossible by the lack of water. Under these circum-
stances a requisition has been presented to the District Committee
with a view to the formation of Newton-Mearns and part of Giffnock
into a Water Supply District. The requisition has been under con-
sideration, and Mr. Stodart, C.E., has, at the request of the District
Committee, prepared a Scheme for a water-supply to be derived from
the Black Loch. While it was apparent to me that, with a growing
population at the lower level, and in consideration of the limited
number of unappropriated sources of supply, it was almost inevitable
that the Black Loch should sooner or later come into requisition, I

[Page] 39

felt that the quality of the water, from the quantity of dissolved
organic matter in it, and its high degree of peatiness, and in
view of their being no bye pass for flood-water, was such as to render
it likely to prove distinctly unsatisfactory for the purpose of domestic
supply, especially in the later summer months. On going over the
ground with the County Sanitary Inspector, Mr. Little, I found that
while a good deal of the gathering-ground was peaty, an appreciable
part of the supply to the loch was derived from a sodden peat-hag,
situated at pretty nearly the level of the water-shed, which an
engineer might contrive means to divert. Having advised the Com-
mittee on these points, it was remitted to the Engineer and myself to
go over the ground together, to make experiments with different
filtering materials, and to report with reference to the effect of settle-
ment and special filteration upon the quality of the water, Mr.
Stodart to report with respect to the possible diversion of the water
from the peat-hag. Thus the matter stands at present. The scheme
undoubtedly involves considerable expense for the water-supply of a
straggling, and at present non-populous, district, but this is a case in
which the Committee is bound to have in regard the possibilities, or
rather the probabilities, of a near or more distant future.
Should the last referred-to scheme be proceeded with, the only
tolerable sized village remaining without a proper water supply will
be the village of Eaglesham. The village is at present dependant
upon a series of shallow wells, and so called 'springs,' which I have
little doubt are simply the out-crop of subsoil drainage. It will be
my duty to investigate this matter more fully in the course of the
ensuing year, especially in consideration of the outbreak of enteric
fever, to which I shall have occasion to refer later on, as having
occurred in the village in the autumn of 1891.
It is deeply to be regretted in respect of the question of water-supply,
that the Local Government Act had not come into operation in the
Second or Lower District ten or fifteen years before it did. The people
of the District have been fully alive to the advantages of a suitable pub-
lic water-supply, and after most strenuous efforts, the wants of almost
every village have been supplied. But at what a cost! Every parish,
as the want became pressing, set about securing a water-supply of its
own, the reductio ad absurdum being reached at Bridge-of-Weir, where
one half of the village being in Kilbarchan Parish has a water-supply
system all to itself, and the other half, situated in Houston Parish,
another. Thus we have, at this moment, no fewer than seven different