After the watermen, most of the city's water came from artisian wells, which produced unreliable polluted drinking water.
Typhoid fever outbreaks killed thousands of citizens in the early 1900s.
Even in the "Grand Hotels" along Mainstreet had toilets and ornate claw-footed bath tubs ruined by rusty stains!
In 1907 the Public Utilities hired Professor Charles Slichter from St Paul, Minnesota as an expert of the highest order, to determine which water supply was best for the city. In 1912 Slichter recommended Shoal Lake citing it as the best supply. He said: "It required no treatment and it was an enormous reservoir of clear, pure and soft water. No other cities such as Glasgow, Los Angeles or New York or any place on earth possessed such wholesome supply!"
Slichter offered the city a few options and one was the "daring" and "visionary" approach to build an aqueduct to Shoal Lake. The route being 85 miles of wilderness, muskeg, streams and rivers with no road access. A railway had to be build parallel to the route to carry workers equipment gravel and cement. Camps were set up along the way to house workers and stockpile materials.
Winnipeg voted to proceed under the direction of mayor Thomas R. Deacon.
Construction started May 15, 1915 and April 6, 1919 the first water came out of the taps in our city! The cost.....$17 million.
Shoal Lake is 300ft higher than Winnipeg, that means gravity could move the water to the city. It covers 110 square miles and contains 93 billion cubic feet of water. Winnipeg takes up to 100 millions of water per day at present. Water quality is so high that no water treatment is necessary, except for the addition of fluoride and chlorine.
The aqueduct enters Winnipeg at the Deacon reservoir at the eastern side edge of Winnipeg. It currently stores 902 million gallons (16 day supply)of water. From there to three regional reservoirs.
- McPhillips enclosed at McPhillips St and Logan Ave
- Wilkes (partly) enclosed at Wilkes Ave and Waverley St.
- MacLean enclosed on Lagimodiare Bld. and Marion St.
From there it delivers water underground to our homes.
Now, you people who take showers, together with the use of toilets are using up HALF the supply.
Why am I informing you, because I found this fascinating and....
I am the accountant for Maple Leaf Drilling Ltd.
One of our expertise are to drill water wells for people outside of the Winnipeg city limits. You like to know more what we do? Go to our web site lots of interesting information. Our site was designed by my son Ron, yes Yvonne's big brother!Go to: mapleleafdrilling.com
Trudy
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