1854 cholera outbreak led to pumphouse

Clean, cool water in abundance is celebrated by the powerful jets and splashing cascades of the Gore Park fountain being rededicated today.

The original fountain installed 150 years ago marked an accomplishment of which the growing city was proud — completion of a pumphouse on the shore of Lake Ontario, a reservoir on the side of the Mountain and wooden pipes supplying water safe to drink in quantities sufficient to fight fires.

The need for it became clear in 1854 when 552 people died in a cholera epidemic blamed largely on lack of clean water.

“Nearly entire families would be cut down inside of 48 hours,” wrote a newspaperman who lived through it.

“Business was at a standstill. Services in the churches were suspended, and, by official proclamation, all public gatherings in theatres and halls were forbidden. Every afternoon, a long line of wagons and hearses would file out King and York streets to the cemeteries. Only the members of the families of the deceased went to funerals in those terrible days.”

Construction took from 1857 to 1859, and the system was officially inaugurated by the Prince of Wales in 1860. At its heart were two elegant steam-powered pumps built in Dundas, housed in a Romanesque-chapel-style stone building, preserved today as the Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology.

Dan McKinnon, who works in the water and wastewater division today, said in an interview that it was the second municipal water system in Canada. Montreal’s was the first.

The museum stands on Woodward Avenue adjacent to the modern plants that now furnish drinking water to, and provide sewage treatment for, most of the urban area.

McKinnon said the 19th-century system pumped 325 cubic metres a day or about 0.3 per cent of today’s 250-300 megalitres.

While there’s plenty of capacity in the second decade of the 21st century, spending to renew aging infrastructure slowed in the 1970s and 1980s, creating a deficit that’s still being addressed now that water and sewer rates have been raised to make the system financially sustainable.

Says McKinnon: “On the water side, Hamilton has some very old infrastructure and will need to reinvest in the next four or five years. The capacity is in pretty good shape, but it’s in big, old buildings that need work. One pumping station built in 1913 still has elements of that vintage.”

Despite that need, Jim Harnum, who was senior director of environment and sustainable infrastructure until he left yesterday to run Toronto’s water department, told council’s public works committee this week that water rates likely won’t rise more than the rate of inflation over the next six to 10 years.

That projection appears in the city’s first water infrastructure financial plan, a document now required by Ontario’s Safe Drinking Water Act.

Rob Rossini, general manager of finance, warned, however, that the rosy picture for water doesn’t extend to sewers and storm drain funding.

“You really should be looking at what’s happening to your whole utility system,” he said.

“Before long, you’ll be seeing this (a long-term financial plan) for wastewater and stormwater and it won’t be as pretty.”

The current rate scheme doubles water bills to pay for sewers, but Councillor Dave Mitchell said the sewer surcharge should probably be 140 to 150 per cent of the water price, not 100 per cent, to reflect real costs.

Rossini said Halton Region has different rates and Hamilton staff is looking at the idea.