Olympia Bought a $1,500 Sewer Map Critics Called Worthless

Editor Tribune: We are about to elect four new councilmen and a mayor. In electing these officers we should carefully consider the men, their ability and honesty. Two problems of great importance will confront us the coming year, our finances and our sewerage. Our finances must be handled with skill or before the year 1893 we are likely to be in the hands of a receiver. Our sewerage must be looked after or there will be a pestilence.

Olympia has always been a healthful place in which to live. We have always been able to raise an over-abundant supply of health-giving foods, especially fruits. Olympia is noted for her fruits, her healthy and jovial people. If we expect to remain a healthy and jovial people, we must look carefully into our sanitary conditions. By looking over the lower part of our city we find orchards dead and dying because of insufficient drainage, where before the grading of our streets they were in a vigorous condition. Also we have had more sickness this year than ever before. The sickness has been of a low type, and some deaths have occurred. Our present council has been accused of inability and dishonesty. We know they have acted injudiciously.

A few months ago a stranger came to our city, purporting to be a sanitary engineer. He called upon some or all of the members of the sewerage committee, but did not present himself to the council. He proceeded to draft plans for a sewerage system for Olympia, copied the profiles of streets from the engineer's office, engaged an engineer to take some levels to the amount of $12 and procured blue print maps to the amount of about $40. With this as data, he proceeded to make plans for a complete sewer system. He employed a draughtsman at an expense of about $150 to make a map of the city. The map is full of errors; anyone familiar with our city additions can point out errors at a glance. He has projected lines of sewers on streets where they run into hollows 60 feet deep, which shows that Mr. Camp was not familiar with the topography of the city.

Mr. Camp in this system introduces a new feature, a 'harbor reservoir,' purporting that this harbor reservoir is now in use in a number of cities in California—San Diego and others. This is true in the case of San Diego, but not others.

There are other features of this system of Mr. Camp's which are contrary to engineering principles, which I will not introduce here.

I wish to quote here from the reports of Mr. Camp, of the sewer committee, and from a report of the board of public works of San Diego, Cal., on their sewer system, of the main features of which ours is a copy.

First—Mr. Camp in his last report to the sewer committee says: 'In drawing these plans I have been governed by the most modern experience.' 'The sewerage system I herewith submit has been formulated after every detail of elevation and topography has been minutely considered, and there is no portion of the city that cannot be made to connect.' 'I have made a complete map at great expense and trouble in order to familiarize myself with the extent of the system of sewerage.'

Second—Report of the sewer committee to the city council: 'We recommend the purchase, at $1,500, of said plans by the city, as from the best information we can obtain the plans are complete in every detail. Your committee herewith submits the report of Engineer A. J. Gillie, whom we employed to give his opinion upon the system.' Signed Murphy, Sickles and Percival.

Third—Report of A. J. Gillie: 'The plans are drawn in accordance with the best modern practice, and are well adapted to the present needs and future possibilities of the city. At the same time economic construction has been constantly kept in view. The city, while possessed of splendid natural advantages for drainage, is in part deprived of them by the Seventh Street tunnel. Mr. Camp's solution of this difficulty is complete.' 'Some objection has been expressed to the construction of a reservoir, but this feature of the system is of vital importance; without it, fully one-half of the sewerage of the city would be deposited along our water front.'

[Note by writer.—Practice does not substantiate it. Inexpensive gates are being used with satisfactory results.]

Fourth report on the sewerage of San Diego, by the board of public works of that city: 'Our attention was first forced to an investigation of the causes which have rendered the outfall so obnoxious to the senses of the people.' 'Complaints, loud and deep, were heard on every hand. Landlords owning houses for half a mile either side complained of the loss of their tenants, on account of the intolerable stench arising from the sewer tank at low tide. And several cases of illness have been brought to our notice, arising, as alleged, from the deadly odors of the harbor reservoir.' 'This sewage tank, or harbor reservoir, as it is called by its designer, is a novelty introduced by Colonel Waring, and we are forced to conclude in regard to it, after the experience of more than a year, in patient and costly endeavor by the city to make the device work as it was intended, that it is a total failure.' 'We do not hesitate to assert, after deliberate investigation, that the entire plan of the sewage tank and the so-called automatic device for emptying it after the turn of the tide is an unpardonable blunder, unqualified by a single redeeming feature. It was a mistake which no engineer of eminence could commit without a sacrifice of reputation. The principle was wrong, the location an outrage.' 'The so-called automatic gate devised by Waring is quite as monumental a failure as the tank itself.' [Note by writer.—Mr. Camp's automatic gate and reservoir are the same as Colonel Waring's.] 'The total cost of this pestilence has been $65,789, including the wharf over the 24-inch pipe.'

In comparing Mr. Camp's estimate of his reservoir, including the flume to carry the pipe from the shore to the reservoir, we find his figures $5,000, a difference of $60,789.

Mr. Camp offered these plans to the city council at their meeting October 20. The sewer committee urged their purchase at once, but through the efforts of other members of the council they were referred to the sewer committee and the city engineer was included on the committee. The sewer committee ignored the city engineer and hired Mr. Gillie to give a report (Mr. Gillie evidently had not read the report on the San Diego system). Our city engineer, having no notice of a meeting of the sewer committee and being busy with other duties, did not give them a thorough investigation, but made a statement before the council that he was not satisfied with all the features of the plans, and cited the reservoir. Mr. Camp used some abusive language by stating that our city engineer could not understand them if he was to explain them to him for a hundred years. This abuse was permitted by the council, and then, upon the motion of Mr. Marr, the plans were purchased October 27, 1891.

The questions arise, why were the members of the sewer committee so anxious to purchase these plans without properly considering them? Were the members of the sewer committee pledged beforehand to support the plans?

The writer, while in conversation one day with Mr. Camp, asked him: 'Have you any assurance that your plans will be accepted, or do you expect to present them on their merits?' He replied with a wink: 'I am not working in the dark. I know what I am doing.'

We have during the last year endured too much of this work. I can cite but few pieces of work done this summer but what there has been some 'batch' in them. Some members of the council take pleasure in riding the hobby that Olympia people are 'kickers.' This is not true. Any persons that have endured with the grace that we have endured are worthy to be classed among martyrs.

I expect to have something further to say on sewers and drainage.