City's Broken Promises Over Water Infrastructure
Contractors are suing Tacoma for thousands after the city abandoned plans for the Maplewood Springs pumping station in favor of new, less efficient well projects.
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Knoell Brothers have followed the lead of George Milton Savage and brought suit against the city for $1,689.15 as the loss they suffered by reason of the repudiation of the contract they had with the city to erect the pumping station in the East End to take care of the water from Maplewood springs. The city will have about $20,000 in damage suits on this case. The administration was determined, however, not to build the Maplewood springs plant because it was advocated by the Wright administration as the next best thing to the gravity system. The whole plant would have cost $268,000 and would have put into Tacoma 18,000,000 gallons of absolutely pure water. The city is now spending much more than that on the well and Clover creek plant, which will not yield much more than half the Maplewood springs amount, according to present city hall figures. In the face of this situation the bacteriologist reports the water contains sewage and the water question is beginning to get very much alive again.
“In the face of this situation the bacteriologist reports the water contains sewage and the water question is beginning to get very much alive again.”
Tacoma has spent over a century wrestling with the reliability and quality of its water supply. The tension between municipal political cycles and long-term utility infrastructure planning remains a persistent civic friction point in the region.
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