Water Supply Treatment at Council Grove, Kansas

Abstract

Among the first essentials in the practical training of engineers is to learn not to despise the day of small things, and to watch and note every strange phenomenon that catches the eye or ear. Countless small scale experiments in the laboratory have resulted in great accomplishments; small models usually exhibit in action the principles that govern full sized productions. More thought and skill are often required to secure efficiency and economy in the design and construction of the small public utility plant than for the much larger ones. Unnecessary first cost and a small annual waste in the one may be a much more serious burden than would be much greater freedom of original expenditure and a larger percentage of annual waste in the other. The writer therefore has no apology to make in presenting for record, and perchance for bringing out some helpful discussion, the following notes about a small water works plant at Council Grove, Kansas. The real westerner is so accustomed to seeing big mountains, big and big rivers, that he naturally uses the big titles even though the object may be really small of its class. Council Grove therefore is a city, though possessing less than 3000 inhabitants, but it has all the characteristics and aspirations of much larger confreres (Fig. 1). The Neosho River, which bisects it, has but 241 square miles of tributary watershed above Council Grove, yet exhibits many of the unfortunate water supply qualities of its friends and neighbors, the Missouri and Arkansas, which latter ultimately engulfs it, with some additional uncomfortable qualities thrown in. The vicinity of Council Grove is typical plains region; rolling land with about 100 feet differences in elevation; some sharp ridges and many abrupt gulches; white limestone the abundant underlying and outcropping rock. The rock strata are not largely water bearing; gravel and sand deposits are scanty and so permeated with clay as to be of but small service for water storage. Such water as finds its way into the rock seams gradually works out into