Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 5 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
To the editor
As a Rappahannock property owner who is presently building a retirement house on S.R. 636,1 read your paper weekly with interest.
Of particular interest to me is the problem facing the Town Council regarding the old water distribution system. As a retiree of the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which provides water and sewer service to over a million customers in Prince George’s and Montgomery County, Maryland, I would like to pass on the financing techniques initiated by the lateT. Howard Duckett who not only founded the WSSC in 1918, but also the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and the Prince George’s Bank which became Suburban Trust Company (which is now part of Sovran Bank).
Having served as design engineer, materials engineer and research engineer, I learned a good bit about materials and underground corrosion of ferrous materials by galvanic action.
The article stated that the Washington water system was 50 years old and that the acidic nature of local soils is corroding the galvanized steel pipes. That corrosion generally occurs in any ferrous materials placed in a medium (such as soil or water) since galvanic action (which is often mistakenly called electrolysis) causes current flow from one point in the pipe to another. Any time current leaves a metal to flow elsewhere, it takes ions of the metal with it. In time, this is simply corrosion (or tuberculation — same thing).
Galvanized pipe was often used for underground water pipe and indoor plumbing before World War II. Since that time copper has been found superior for {dumbing.
Any underground galvanized pipe system with 50 years’ service has served its useful life and any further patching is wasted money.
The problem the Town Council faces is where to get the money to reconstruct the system.
I know the Virginia state government has “paid as it goes” whereas WSSC has always issued revenue bonds to pay for any new construction, which is supplemented by a nominal ad valorem tax and the retirement of the bonds. Operation of the water supply and the mainter
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