Sacramento Daily Record Union

ANOTHER CALL FOR ATTENTION

Eds. Record-Union: What is the use of our Board of Health condemning China slough and the drainage canal as nuisances while our Trustees are permitting, or one of them at least, and in fact almost assisting in the formation of a fresh abominable nuisance to add to our already long list of disease-breeding plague-spots? Until this present season the old line of Burns' slough within the city limits has had only pure, clear water flowing in or into it, and at this time of year has always been dry and free from anything objectionable. But lately the slough from below Twenty-eighth and K streets has been turned into the worst kind of a pest hole. The drainage from the Sacramento brewery has been turned into it, and for some distance spreads out over the bottom of the slough, festering in the hot sun and making a nuisance which is but little known because so few live in the vicinity. But have the few no rights to be protected from the cholera or the causes which assist most in its development?

Only a few months ago the proprietors of a hide drying establishment, located only about a block away from where this nuisance is being committed, were compelled to pull up stakes and move out of the city limits, although the nuisance committed by them was no greater than the one which has taken its place will soon become. But no sooner has our Health Department got rid of the hide establishment than another nuisance is thrust upon us, and that, too, sanctioned by one of the members of the Board of Trustees, whether or not the other members are aware of it.

Further down the slough the Union brewery is permitted to discharge its drainage into the slough at Twentieth and O streets, thus making a nuisance of the slough from there to the city limits, making, as it were, a line of corruption similar to the drainage canal right down through the southeastern part of the city. There seems to be but little fall to the slough, and as a result the filthy waters, having the nauseating smell so peculiar to the drainage from breweries, passes slowly along, breeding disease and pestilence throughout the length of the slough.

Formerly, and even when no danger threatened, the proprietors of these breweries were compelled to take care of the drainage from their places without making it a nuisance and a menace to others. But this season, even in the presence of impending and overshadowing danger, from some inexplicable reason the drainage of these places has been turned loose to contaminate the soil along Burns' slough, and, by its evaporation after decomposition, the air we breathe.

It is greatly to be hoped that the Board of Health will take notice of this matter, and find some speedy and efficient means for the abating of this new and almost officially sanctioned nuisance.

A SUFFERER.

Sacramento, August 8, 1883.