FRANCIS I. CIANCIARUIO
CIVICS
MARCH 18, 1929
PER. 8
FORWARD
For my material for this Term Topic
I am indebted to the East Bay Utility District and their wonderful help and co-operation in supplying me the material. Their willingness to help and interest was a great deal toward this Term. Topic.
F.L.C.
The first important attempt to secure a comprehensive water system was the organization in 1866 of the Contra Costa Water Company by Anthony Chabot and his brother Renee Chabot, and Henry Pierce. The City Council of Oakland granted this company, on July 18, 1866, the right to lay pipes in the City of Oakland. This company began the delivery of water in 1867, and by the end of 1869 had completed a dam on Temescal Creek from which the water was taken, and had laid about 40,000 feet of pipe. This company soon after made plans for acquiring rights and developing water from San Leandro Creek.
Piedmont Spring Power and Water Company was incorporated August 20, 1891, and had to develop tunnels and reservoir to supply the City of Piedmont. The company was then conveyed to the City of Oakland Water Company in January 1894
On July 1,1924, parties were placed in the field for the examination of projects for the use of Mel River, Hokelunne River, and two different proposals from the Sacramento. Examinations also were made of proposals to utilize the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct and storage of the City of San Francisco, and reconnaissance was made of proposals for the utilization of McCloud River and the American River.
The total appropriation for these examinations was meagre and it became necessary either to make a choice within the first few months or to postpone the same for another year, and as the water supply in 1924 had run very low and a water shortage was threatened, it was decided to push the work to the limit and select a source in time to submit it to the electors for approval at the Presidential election on November 3, 1924. With this in view the various sources were compared and estimates were pushed as fast as field data could be made available, and on September 11, 1924, a Board consisted of the Chief Engineer of the District and of consulting engineers previously chosen by the Board, Mr, William Mulhalland and General George W. Goethal. was convened to review the estimates and make a selection of source.
This Board visited the various projects, examined and discussed the various features with the engineers who had made the examinations and prepared the estimates, and finally concluded that the lokel unne River was the most promising and economical source of supply and embodied this conclusion In a reprot, recommending the construction of a reservoir on that river and aqueduct from that reservoir to the District.
This Mokelumne River is about ninety miles from Oakland and is served to the consumers from the Distribution reservoirs it is served to us by pipe under the city's streets.
In the year September, 1924, attention was called by the Board of Consulting Engineers, that the fact that the plans then under examination related only to bringing distant water supply to the District, and that it would be necessary later to obtain a distribution system either by purchase of the expiation system of the East Bay Water Company or by constructing a new system all together.
After a vote was taken by the general public for using the present system it is now in use by the Mast Bay Utility District and is served to us by pipes under the city's streets to distributing lines then into the lead-in pipes to the meter where it is accurately registered and then to ours faucets.
The general cost of this great project is estimated to be about $ 64,000, 000. 00
[Water supply and PG & E sections were skipped]