REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON DRAINAGE,

SEWERAGE AND TOPOGRAPHY.

This committee reports progress in the duties that have been assigned to it by submitting the more important papers that have been referred by the Board during the year, accompanying the same with a brief account of the results of investigation relating to the subject to which they refer.

The committee has to call attention to the fact, which appears in nearly all the petitions and papers that have been referred for investigation, that the State has not yet enacted any general drainage law adapted to the common necessities of the communities and districts which suffer most from neglect and obstruction of drainage; and that there is found to be no adequate provision of law to prevent the pollution of streams and other sources of drinking water. Few, if any, of the numerous petitions and complaints which have been referred by the Board to this committee, and less than one-half of the cases that have been presented by appeal of the inhabitants, to the Governor, and by his direction referred to the Board, are found to be susceptible of correct sanitary and engineering treatment, under what is known as the General Drainage Act of 1869, and the amendments of that act.

The natural topography of the State of New York has determined its normal drainage areas, and these are not difficult to understand with reference to the essential questions which relate to sanitary drainage. But the committee has to notice in numerous instances that the immediate occasion for a complaint and appeal to the State Board, with regard to the drainage or improper outflow of sewage into sluggish streams or ponds, lakes, etc., requires a more comprehensive treatment of the primary questions of drainage and sewerage than a single village or neighborhood will separately undertake to give in such matters. The jurisdiction of village, or even of town authorities, must not unfrequently be largely transcended in the study and preparation of really adequate plans for the drainage or sewerage that is required for the protection of the public health. For this reason the committee unhesitatingly calls the attention of the Board to the importance of vesting in some suitable source of correct judgment a wise and useful discretionary authority for approval, at least in regard to plans for sanitary and economic drainage as demanded for the protection of life and health under the various circumstances in which the immediate local authority cannot, or will not, devise and put into action all the necessary plans for securing the sanitary interests of a community. Perhaps no better illustration of this

can be presented from the list of cases that have been referred to this committee than that which was found to be of general importance in the village of Croton Falls, a hamlet which had not sufficient population to obtain incorporation. The four townships contribute a corner of their contiguous territory, respectively, within the limits of the village area which requires systematic drainage to render life and health reasonably secure. Not one of these four towns could consistently undertake, through its Health Board or otherwise, to devise plans and provide for the execution of the work by which the drainage and the outflow of that little village shall be sanitarily and economically satisfactory and sufficient. It was found by Engineer Croes, who accompanied a member of this committee on the inspection, that each of the four townships shared to some extent in the responsibility for the sources of nuisance and danger, which should be at once prevented by the adoption of a simple system of ground drainage and safe outflow from dwellings, to fields or streams, at a suitable distance from their doors.

The Croton river bisects the village and offers facilities for the defilement of its waters. There is no settlement of the question of sanitary duty as regards the village and the Croton river, without first determining upon, and adopting a suitable plan for the village drainage, and its outflow of excrement and waste. A like necessity for the adoption of a suitable general system or plan of drainage, etc., for an area that comprises parts of contiguous townships, will be noticed in the papers, herewith submitted, relating to drainage along the line of the abandoned canals in Schuyler, Chemung and Livingston counties.

To meet numerous calls of duty this committee has from time to time been permitted by the Board to engage temporarily the services of expert civil engineers who have acceptably met the exigencies which have arisen in the Board's service in this respect. We would refer particularly to a few papers that are submitted to illustrate the extent of the work which the Board has undertaken. Among the most important questions now before this committee and the Board itself are;

1. What should be recommended as the best plan for a separate and most economical system of sewerage for villages and small cities; and by what methods shall the outflow of storm-water and the soil-drainage of such places be secured?

2. In what manner shall the ground-drainage of building-sites be thoroughly secured for separate dwellings and ordinary villages?

3. What provisions are required in a general drainage law that shall be applicable and most useful throughout the State, and which shall treat natural drainage areas in the most effectual and economical way, yet mainly at the expense of towns and estate owners, without involving such works in the discredit and vexation of county bonds?

4. What other, if any, of preliminary work relating to sanitary drainage, should the State bear; and what judgment and responsibility may justly be regarded as proper to require of the State Board of Health with respect to determining the necessity of, and plans for, each project of general drainage?

These are practical questions, sure to be thrust upon the attention of the State Board and of the local Boards of Health from time to time. As every drainage project, and every scheme for storing or reserving extensive bodies of water will ever involve important sanitary consideration, this committee respectfully submits the question, "Ought not the

State Board of Health to secure the preparation of a suitable project of law to meet the question here mentioned; and ought not the State to direct that its engineer and surveyor and its Board of Health shall not only examine and approve, but counsel and aid in regard to proposed drainage works under a general drainage law?"

This committee finds the most important questions which were referred to it by the Board have a wider scope, and that the study of them, has a more general importance than has usually been implied in the reasons given by the local authorities and citizens who have applied to the Board for advice on these subjects. For example, the nuisances caused by stagnant pools and malarial grounds that are accused of bringing half the population under medical treatment for miasmatic sickness, are precisely like those which many a little hamlet, many an owner of mills and shops, and many a farmer even lets exist, to the great harm of families and working people who are exposed to these results of sheer neglect and ignorance. In other words, the questions and petitions which a local Board of Health, or a larger number of citizens in a village or city, send up for the consideration of the State Board or the Governor of the State, are in a smaller, but not less important, way the very questions that have to be asked, and the very petitions or demands that ought to be made, in every neighborhood where local causes of diseases are produced and neglected. This committee believes it to be the duty of every local Board of Health to make such faithful and timely sanitary inspections and maintain such a habit of correct general and special observations, of the local and domiciliary causes of fatal sickness, that there shall be throughout the State a wise oversight and repression. of all the causes of the malarial and filth diseases. If adequate sewerage and safe house plumbing must be provided in cities, then surely in the village and rural towns there should be no reeking ditches and pools of excremental filth, and no ventilation of cesspools into the dwellings which they endanger, nor should cottages and rural homes be permitted to have about them any preventable sources of foul air and disease poisons. Even the watering places and summer retreats, to which a vast proportion of the city and village population resort, must be protected as never yet they have been by law and correct sanitary practice for the prevention of diseases from their filthy outflowing and their miasmatic environment. The committee in concluding this brief report submits a large variety of special papers and statements which amply ilustrate the importance of the several points here presented.

Respectfully submitted,

For the Committee,

E. HARRIS, Secretary.

ABANDONED CANAL NUISANCE AND MIASMATIC DISEASE IN CHEMUNG AND SCHUYLER COUNTIES BETWEEN HORSEHEADS AND HAVANA.

The Chemung canal, extending from Watkins to Elmira, was abandoned in 1878. Its 45 locks and levels, between Havana and Horseheads, soon became the seat of obstructed pools, and, as shown in this Board's first report, the physicians in that region unanimously accused this nuisance as the cause of unusual sickness along the abandoned canal. The first drainage work extended to lock 45, 4 1-2 miles north of the village of Horseheads. The long level extending from lock 45 to Horseheads village remained a nuisance, which cannot be completely abated as long as that village maintains the dams that the legislature of 1880 authorized (chapter 379, of 1880) for giving that village an artificial pond. The dam across the canal in the village, as authorized by that law, completely obstructs the outflow from the long level, though a natural creek, which should have its drainage southward into the Chemung river.

An abstract of petitions and medical testimony relating to the evils we are about to describe in this account of sanitary work along the line of the late abandoned canal, extending southward from the head of Seneca lake, was presented in the report of this Board a year ago. It was shown conclusively that a large proportion of the families in the immediate vicinity of the abandoned canal, had suffered grievously from miasmatic fevers and other disorders, and as these maladies reappeared, and were much complained of during the month of May of the present year, the President and Secretary as members of this committee made a tour of inspection on the 30th of May, and reported to the Governor the results with the following statements.

To His Excellency, A. B. CORNELL.

The undersigned, a committee of the State Board of Health, appointed to report on the nuisances alleged to have been caused by the abandonment of the Chemung canal, would respectfully report:

That they have made personal inspection of the places complained of, and taken the testimony of physicians who have care of the people in the neighborhood. The amount of sickness is appalling, no family escaping the invasion of malarial diseases, for a distance of two miles along the borders of the old canal, even children at breast becoming purple and shaking in the cold stage of intermittent. We find the prism of the abandoned canal has become a marsh. But we believe the whole danger can be removed by simply ditching, with a little filling at special points. We advise if such work is undertaken, that the ditches be so protected at the sides as to become durable.

(Signed)

E. M. MOORE, President.
ELISHA HARRIS, Secretary.

Thereupon, the Governor transmitted this brief communication to the legislature with the following request:

The attention of the legislature is respectfully, but earnestly, called to the importance of providing for the prompt abatement of a nuisance emanating from the present condition of the abandoned Chemung

canal, and dangerous to the health and lives of people living in the immediate vicinity.

The report of the State Board of Health, to whom the complaint of citizens was referred for investigation, is herewith transmitted, from which it will be seen that great suffering is now felt in consequence of the neglect of the State to provide suitable protection against the evils complained of.

It is hereby recommended, therefore, that the Superintendent of Public Works, be authorized to take the necessary steps to remedy the existing difficulty, and suitable appropriation be made for that purpose. (Signed) ALONZO B. CORNELL.

Dated June 1, 1881.

Acting upon this information and request, a sufficient appropriation was made.

Before the Governor had signed that act which had passed both branches of the legislature, the appeals for advice from that portion of the country bordering upon the abandoned canal, between Mount Morris and Dansville in Livingston county, received attention from members of this committee, under direction of the Board, and upon reporting back to the Governor the results of inspection in that region, the enactment here mentioned was returned to the legislature, and by it amended, and passed, becoming chapter 593.

The superintendent of public works proceeded early in July to execute as much work as practicable before the 10th of August, a period at which it was deemed expedient to terminate such drainage work for the time being. During that brief period of less than six weeks, thirtynine levels of the Chemung branch of abandoned canals were drained. A description of the drainage work is presented in the report made by Hon. Dr. G. M. Beard, here submitted on a subsequent page.

Abandoned canal nuisance. Late Genesee Valley canal, between Dansville and Scottsville.

An appeal by the local Board of Health of Groveland, Livingston county, here annexed, was supported by such medical testimony that it became neccssary for the State Board to report to the Governor, the results of an examination which he directed to be made. The following is the petition:

To the State Board of Health:

The undersigned, the Board of Health of the town of Groveland, county of Livingston, State of New York, would respectfully represent: That the condition of the Genesee Valley canal since its abandonment by the State, and especially at the present time, is causing a great amount of sickness in said town of Groveland, in the vicinity of the canals. The recent rains have made pools of standing water in the prism of the canals, which there is no possible means of draining off by the adjoining owners, or by the town Board. This stagnant water has become very offensive, and the probability is that if some steps are not taken at once to remove the nuisance, malarial fever, and other kindred diseases which have already become very prevalent in the vicinity of the canal, will there become a pestilence.

We therefore respectfully ask that some steps may be at once taken