Photo of the Balayan Waterworks Standpipe [October 1915, BPW Quarterly Bulletin] - Batangas History, Culture and Folklore Photo of the Balayan Waterworks Standpipe [October 1915, BPW Quarterly Bulletin] - Batangas History, Culture and Folklore

Photo of the Balayan Waterworks Standpipe [October 1915, BPW Quarterly Bulletin]

This photograph is part of a series showing mostly construction projects undertaken by the Bureau of Public Works during the American colonial era. All photographs have been digitally extracted from the Quarterly Bulletins of the bureau and processed using graphics editing software to improve quality. It goes without saying that the eventual output of each extract was always going to be dependent on the quality of the original scan.

By late 1915, according to the October Quarterly Bulletin1 of the Bureau of Public works for that same year, all municipalities in Batangas were very much interested in have a safe and stable supply of water. Partly, this was probably because of the cholera epidemic that badly affected the province early in the previous decade.

According to this same bulletin, in the Municipality of Balayan, the waterworks project had been completed. The town, according to the same bulletin, “had two good flowing artesian wells, one, to which the system is connected, flowing approximately 250 gallons per minute at ground level, the water rising to 25 feet above the ground.”

Related to this, a standpipe, which connects the water supply to a reservoir and subsequent distribution, was used in the Balayan waterworks system. This standpipe was described by the bulletin as “of 1,300 gallons capacity” and used “to give pressure, connected with a 6-inch pipe to the main street, 3-inch pipe on all principal streets, and 11-inch pipe on side streets.”

This water system in Balayan had a provision for public hydrants. Practically all houses in the municipality were said to be expected to avail of the water service, which was said to have the ability to deliver water even to second floors of any house in the town.

A picture of the standpipe in Balayan is shown below.

Balayan Waterworks standpipe 1915
The Balayan Waterworks standpipe.  Image digitally extracted from the October 1915 edition of the Bureau of Public Works Quarterly Bulletin.
Notes and references:
1 “Bureau of Public Works Quarterly Bulletin, Volume 4 No. 3,” published October 1915 in Manila by the Bureau of Public Works.
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