UNIVERSITY

A

APPENDIX A.

REPORT OF JOHN R. FREEMAN, CONSULTING ENGINEER.

January 31, 1908.

To the State Water Supply Commission:

Gentlemen. On August 6, 1907, under your direction, I began engineering studies pursuant to chapter 569, acts of 1907, which became a law on July 12th and is popularly known as the Fuller bill.* This act requires a report of progress on or before February 1, 1908, and I have the honor to present one as follows:

My engagement was to supervise the organization and early progress of the work, and terminates on January 31st, the pressure of other work preventing my continuing. I will therefore report in much detail, in order that the reasons for the several studies begun may be made clear, and that the information obtained and the methods employed may be matters of record.

After a careful review of the specifications of the act, and a study of the topographic maps of the State and of sundry reports upon water power and water storage in the State of New York that have been published in previous years by the United States census, the United States Geological Survey, the New York Water Storage Commission and the State Engineer, it appeared to me best to concentrate the work upon the one or two large projects which after a review of sundry sites seemed to present the best opportunities for water power development under State control, rather than to spread the appropriation thinly over so broad a field of investigation that no conclusion could be reached on any one project.

One of these sites selected for investigation is located on the Sacandaga river near the point where it empties into the Hudson at Hadley, about forty-five miles northerly from Albany. This site promised the best opportunity of any found for the construc

*See Appendix D Below.

tion of a great storage reservoir for regulating the flow of the Hudson river for the benefit of the thirteen water power sites already established between Troy and Corinth, which have an aggregate fall of about three hundred and eighty feet. It would more than double their present power in time of drought and add upward of 70,000 horse power to the water power commercially available at these several sites already utilized upon the Hudson.

It also promised an opportunity for building later a power house in connection with its dam site, where the yield, if drawn at a constant uniform rate twenty-four hours per day and seven days in the week throughout the year, would give 25,000 to 30,000 horse power measured on the turbine shaft, or if distributed mainly in ordinary working hours, or under a 40 per cent. load factor, would deliver at Albany or elsewhere as needed within a radius of fifty miles, from 50,000 to 60,000 electrical horse power measured at the consumers' end, throughout even the dryest year.

The Sacandaga reservoir site also promised much more benefit than any other in the way of water supply for an enlarged Champlain canal, and for aiding in the increase of the mid-summer depth for navigation below Troy and for improving the quality. of the water where taken for domestic purposes as far down as Poughkeepsie, by reason of the greater flow and the dilution in summer of the impurities that come from the sewers of the towns above.

Requests were soon received from the supervisors of Monroe county that a part of our work be devoted towards studying their problems of water storage for flood relief at Rochester and in the valley above it and of a power development in connection therewith, which should help carry the expense.

Four topographic survey parties and one party for precise bench levels were organized as rapidly as possible for the upper Hudson and Sacandaga studies, under the general supervision of Mr. Horace Ropes, an engineer of wide experience in hydraulic construction, but it proved impossible to get our survey parties well at work until about Oct. 1st, because of delays resulting from the scarcity of good men under the exceptional industrial activity then prevailing, the lack of instruments and an unusual amount of rainy weather.

An additional topographic party was organized in October for the Genesee river studies under the general supervision of Mr. Walter McCulloh, the engineer permanently employed by your Board.

The four months intervening between Oct. 1st and Jan. 31st have obviously given insufficient time to accomplish work which might well occupy a year.

Work on test pits and borings at the dam sites, for proving the depth to ledge and the character of the substrata, have suffered from causes of delay which are not uncommon, and I am, therefore, unable to present final designs and estimates of cost with such fulness of detail as I would like, especially because of the test borings completed being much fewer than necessary.

Final and positive statements regarding the feasibility and cost of the two main projects studied are not warranted at this time, but it can at least be said that no insurmountable obstacle to either the Sacandaga dam site or the Portage dam site has yet been found, and that the outlook for both is very hopeful and abundantly warrants an expenditure for further study. In brief, the work accomplished is as follows:

STREAM FLOW DIVISION.

1. Studies of all known records of the rainfall in the Adirondack region, and also upon the headwaters of the Genesee region, have been made with a view to determining the frequency and range of years of exceptionally small rainfall and with a view to learning if the storage must be planned to provide against greater droughts than those which have occurred in the period since accurate daily gagings of the river flow began.

Diagrams presenting these facts are submitted.

2. A tour of inspection of all known Adirondack rain-gage stations was made, and sketches made of surroundings of each gage, and an attempt to discover if some were less worthy of credence than others in making up the average.

Six additional rain-gages have been set in the Adirondack region in districts not well covered by the previous records, and continuous gagings of rain and snow-falls and daily maximum and minimum temperatures at these stations are being maintained.

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Delay in receipt of instruments prevented beginning these measurements in season for study of the distribution of the remarkably abundant rainfall of last September. Records of this kind must be continued for several years before they become of much value.

3. Two series of comparisons have been begun between raingages of types used many years ago in making the early records and the standard type of rain-gage used to-day, with a view to learning if the early records are fairly comparable with the late records, or what correction should be added to make them so. One set of these observations is being carried on at Cornell University, the other set at the Clarkson Memorial Institute at Potsdam, N. Y. At least a year's record will be needed before any conclusive results will be obtained. Several years of comparison is desirable.

4. The average normal annual rainfall for both the upper Hudson and the Genesee regions has been determined and isohyetal maps (plates 10 and 19) prepared, and the facts that the rainfall is decidedly larger at the head waters of both streams, than for their drainage areas as a whole, have been fully established, and until in course of time additional rainfall records become available, this branch of the study is complete.

From this larger rainfall of the Sacandaga, the run-off per square mile is probably 15 per cent. larger than for whole of the Hudson drainage above Mechanicville, and the run-off of the Genesee dainage area above Portage, although less precisely determined, is probably at least 12 per cent. larger per square mile than for the entire Genesee above Rochester.

5. A review and comparison of all published gagings of the flow of the several tributaries of the upper Hudson has been made. 6. A series of daily river gagings on the more important tributaries of the Hudson, viz.— at three points on the Sacandaga, at two points on the upper Hudson and at one point on the Schroon, has been begun in co-operation with the United States Geological Survey, the observers being paid from the funds provided under the Fuller bill.

These observations have beeen carried on continuously since about Sept. 1st and fortunately were begun just before the close

of a remarkably severe drought. They are for the purpose of showing the relative yield per square mile of the different tributaries and for comparison with the long established gagings of the flow of the whole river at Mechanicville.

7. New measurements have been made of the present diversion of water into the Champlain canal, and the compensation necessary on this account for correcting the records of the Hudson. river's daily flow past the gaging stations at Fort Edward and Mechanicville has been determined and a corrected record prepared.

Records of the storage control of Indian lake have been worked up as well as the crude data available will permit, in order to show just what effect the large dam built here in 1899 with the co-operation of the State, has had in reinforcing the low water flow of the Hudson.

8. The amount of storage required for permanently regulating flow of the upper Hudson river in general and that of the Sacandaga tributary in particular, has been estimated in great detail, so that the yield from the proposed storage reservoir and its effect in adding to the low water flow of the Hudson can now be predicted with all the precision and certainty necessary for water power studies.

Diagrams have been completed showing the volume of the Sacandaga flow that can be safely relied upon for power in the severest drought, corresponding to various given amounts of storage; also diagrams showing the reservoir depletion that would have occurred year by year with the proposed rate of draft and the proposed volume of storage.

SACANDAGA SURVEY DIVISION.

9. A general system of triangulation over the entire territory was established, and the several partial surveys have all been reduced to one rectangular co-ordinate system, and mapped in accordance therewith. The geodetic connection of this co-ordinate system to the primary points of the State survey or to the precise latitude and longitude have not yet been made, because of requir