Abstract
IT is natural and appropriate that the paramount topic of the drought should find a prominent place in the presidential address of Mr. Councillor Thomas Paris at the annual meeting of the British Waterworks Association (Incorp.) at Edinburgh on June 27. Much of what he had to say respecting the pernicious effects of a shortage of water has been a matter of common experience, but he made the pertinent observation that many of the failures in supply con be traced to procrastination and lack of courage in promoting water schemes. This was more particularly in reference to rural areas where, he emphasised, “the importance of an abundant supply of wholesome water is hardly to be over-estimated” since insufficient or impure water in those areas lias wide-reaching effects on public health through milk and foodstuffs produced for general consumption. He alluded to the frequent lack of storage facilities and urged all councils, regional, urban and rural, to take action in the direction of increasing their storage and, where necessary, constructing new waterworks. Another of his points was river pollution, which, he contended, in the national interest must cease. He instanced the case of Edinburgh, where a few years ago there was a turbid stream flowing tlirough the city, “offensive to eye and nostril”. The action taken by civic authority has resulted in the transformation of a public nuisance and a menace to health into a “fished water”. He is opposed to the formation of a national water grid, alleging that the argument for such a grid, so far as Scotland is concerned, is without foundation. The question in his view is not one of water shortage, but rather of storage and distribution.
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Water Supply. Nature 133, 991 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133991a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133991a0