My How H2O Times Have Changed
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This cache is close to the entrance of the Santa Cruz Waste Water Treatment Facility. You may enjoy a trip back in time to long before water use restrictions.
** Jan 2010 - I upped the difficultly 1/2 star. The camo is pretty good.
From "The History of Santa Cruz" by Edward Sanford Harrison, written in 1892:
SANTA CRUZ CITY WATER SYSTEM
Without doubt Santa Cruz is the best watered, as well as the best lighted, town on the Pacific Coast. She owns her own water supply and electric light works. The water system especially is a matter of great local pride, and, naturally enough, those connected with it take great pleasure in exhibiting it. When the writer communicated to the superintendent, Mr. O. F. Lincoln, his desire to learn something of the system, Mr. Lincoln took the historian in a buggy out to the reservoir and over the pipe line, and explained in detail the workings of the plan by which the city is supplied with an abundance of pure cold water. The chairman of the Water Committee, Mr. Werner Finkeldy, took the pains to supply me with copies of his official reports. From these I have taken some facts and figures, which I give below.
The city water works were constructed at a cost of $300,000, for which amount city bonds were voted at an election in 1888. The source of supply is Laguna Creek, a pure mountain stream, twelve miles from town. A reservoir holding sixty-five million gallons is located two miles north of the city, and fed from the fountain-head by a ten- mile line of fourteen-inch pipe. The mains on the streets comprise one mile of twelve-inch pipe, three and one-half miles of six-inch pipe, and fourteen miles of four-inch pipe. The pressure on the street mains is uniformly about one hundred pounds to the square inch. This is amply sufficient for all emergencies in case of fire, so Santa Cruz has no paid fire department and no fire engines. Still its losses by fire are much less than those ordinarily sustained by other towns of the same size. The total of fire losses for the year 1890 was about $1,400, and this in a town of seven thousand inhabitants, and town too built almost entirely of wood.
The supply is so plentiful that the stream from the fountain-head is at all times more than sufficient for the city's needs; and in the summertime, as it is somewhat cooler than that in the reservoir, it is turned directly into the street mains, leaving the sixty-five million gallons in the reservoir for a reserve. Whenever the rains have muddied the streams, the fresh supply is diverted into a canon below the reservoir and the reserve drawn upon. Should the reservoir itself ever become contaminated or stagnant, it can be quickly emptied by means of pipe leading to this caflon. This is an unlikely contingency, however, for the water is pure, the reservoir is wind-swept in all directions, and there is no defouling vegetation in or near it.
Water rates are very low. A family of two pays forty cents per month, this charge including water for all possible domestic uses, baths, irrigation, etc. Each additional person over six years of age is charged ten cents per month. There are only a few unimportant streets unprovided for. After the extension is completed, rates will probably be still further reduced, and the people get water almost free.
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Don't you wish our water was still "almost free"??!!
Items placed in the cache originally:
* Fiji Sunset Flip Flops Geocoin with real Fijiian coins donated by our friends DKMAS
* a traditional "Masi" or lei from Salee Salee, Fiji. Also donated by DKMAS
* dog bone eraser
* rainbow peace necklace
* X-ray stickers
FTF please take a Fijiian coin or two from the Geocoin baggie. :-)
Placement is key with this cache. Please make sure it's put back in exact spot and camoed well. THERE IS NO NEED TO WALK IN OR TRAMPLE THE IVY. ALSO, THE CACHE IS NOT A SPRINKLER SO PLEASE DO NOT PULL OR DISASSEMBLE THE SPRINKLERS. THE GROUNDSPEOPLE WILL GET UPSET.
Thanks and have fun caching!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Yhvtv fnlf vg'f oynpx naq ebhaq naq arneol