The best water source questioned, artesian wells considered
Photo was taken in Churchill, Manitoba. They stopped in Manitoba to refuel on their way to china
It was only when municipally-owned electricity was flowing through the city’s power lines that the water question re-emerged, with. Deacon leading the debate by again emphasizing Shoal Lake as the best option.
The Voice of April 22, 1910, ran an extensive interview on the condition of Winnipeg’s water supply from artesian wells with S.J. Andrews, who was mayor at the time the Winnipeg Water Works Company was purchased. In the interview, Andrews recollected that Rudolph Hering recommended to city council to use artesian wells, despite many people expressing doubts that such a source was adequate for a growing city.
“Any shortness of water that has been expressed by the city of Winnipeg has been caused by the failure to carry out the recommendation of CoL Ruttan as to the wells to be put down owing to the unexpected great volume of water found in the first well, the city neglected for a long time to sink sufficient wells, and the result that there was for a time a shortage of water
“Since then the city has been persuaded to sink more wells, with the result that at the present time, though we are using much more than we have ever used before, we have today much more water than is required.”
The supply was so plentiful that Andrews maintained it was adequate for a city 10 times Winnipeg’s size.
He claimed that water obtained from the Winnipeg River would not be drinkable unless treated, as “construction camps along the Winnipeg River have been compelled to forbid the use of the water without being boiled or filtered, because of the typhoid fever -in the camps, caused by drinking it unfiltered.”
Andrews said that since sewage from towns along the Winnipeg River, Lake of the Woods and Rainy River all went into the water, these were not viable options for obtaining a safe supply of drinking water for Winnipeg.
“I became satisfied of the sufficiency of our water supply only after very careful consideration, and instead of having any reason since to doubt the conclusion reached at the time, each year has confirmed my conviction that we have no reason whatever to fear any shortage of water, even if our wildest dreams as to Winnipeg’s growth are, as I trust they will be, verified.”
But Andrews’ views were steadily becoming the opinion of a minority of Winnipeggers. Even as early as 1906, councillors were disillusioned with engineer Col. Ruttan’s “glittering theories.”
A July 17, 1906, editorial in the Telegram deplored the artesian well system as expensive and disappointing. Yet, the same editorial proposed Lake Manitoba as a source of Winnipeg’s water.
A 1913 bylaw for a $1-million pipeline for the city’s Popular Springs artesian well system was defeated in a referendum by ratepayers, which prompted city council to hire Professor C.S. Schlichter of Wisconsin to undertake yet another investigation into the city’s water supply.
In his report to the public utility commissioner, Schlichter indicated he favoured the Shoal Lake option, calling for the city’s use of artesian wells to “be abandoned at the earliest possible date. The water is excessively hard, and is corrosive and destructive to an unusual degree.”
He said if the city decided to use Shoal Lake as a water source, it should ensure the area surrounding the lake “must remain in its present wild state.”
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