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TO: ACTING CHIEF ENGINEER DOUGHERTY
FROM: ALEXANDER GEORGE
APRIL 30, 1906

I have carefully investigated the water supply of the city and accordingly present to you the following report:

The pressure of the Lake Honda system is still about forty pounds below the normal, but is gradually improving. There is water south of Union street, from Gough to Baker; west of Gough street to Vallejo, south of Vallejo street to Van Ness avenue, west of Van Ness avenue. On Franklin street the water goes right over to Vallejo street, but on Gough street there is no water north of Bush street until Pacific avenue is reached. Octavia street is the same as Gough street; on Laguna street the water comes north to Pine street, also on Buchanan street; on Webster street the water comes to Clay street, and and Fillmore and Steiner streets it goes through to Union street.

On Pierce street the water comes to Clay street on the south and to Pacific avenue on the north. on Scott, Devisadero and Broderick streets the water to Washington street on the south, and it also runs on Scott street, between Broadway and Union street. Going west we have water to Clay and Baker streets, Sacramento and Lyon streets and California street and Presidio avenue. The Richmond District is still without water. The lower districts of the Western Addition are all supplied.

The College Hill reservoir is in the best condition, the pressure being about normal, but on account of a break in the 12-inch main at Seventeenth and Howard streets, which has not yet been repaired, the pressure at Southern Heights has been so reduced that water will not rise above Eighteenth street. The University Mound system is in the worst condition, as the reservoir is almost empty, and no water has flowed into it since the earthquake. In South San Francisco [now Hunters Point] the water does not go above Fourteen avenue, South on Railroad avenue owing to a break in the 12-inch main on Kentucky [now Third] street south of Army street, which has not yet been repaired.

In the Mission the pressure on the east line of Mission street, which is the dividing line of the University Mound supply, is so reduced that the water does not flow. North of Nineteenth street and east of Valencia street there is no water at all, except in the main on Sixteenth street, from Folsom to Harrison; thence to Seventeenth; thence on Potrero avenue to Twenty-third street. This would prove entirely adequate should more than one stream be required, since the main supply is taken at Seventeenth and Howard streets as already mentioned.

The Ocean View district is entirely without water owing to a break in the 12-inch main on Capitol avenue, near Sagamore street. The Seventeenth street pumps have resumed operations, drawing their supply from the College Hill main on Valencia street, and accordingly the Clarendon Heights tank is again able to supply the Ashbury Heights district as well as the upper portion of Noe Valley.

There will be no water on Pacific and Presidio Heights until the Black Point pumps are started again, which cannot be until the College Hill supply is carried down Market street to Kearny or Sansome street and thence through the burned district to North Beach. This may take a week or ten days, as every section must be tested at least twenty-four hours before another section is opened up.

As the 22-inch main from College Hill has been relaid on Valencia street between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets, where the ground sunk ten feet, and as the district formerly supplied by this main has been almost entirely wiped out, it would seem as though the relaying of the 16-inch main on Valencia street might have been delayed until the breaks in districts now entirely without water have been repaired.

Should a fire break out in the factory district in the Mission the same difficulty would be met in extinguishing it that existed at the time of the big fire.


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