Bound Volumes, Hometown History
August 24, 2023
40 YEARS AGO
Tap water in Oneonta is distasteful and smells foul because engineers are pumping from the Susquehanna River to conserve precious water supplies in city reservoirs. The musty flavor is from leaf mold in the Mill Race, along the Susquehanna River, from which the city is drawing the river water, according to city engineer Richard C. Olton. “The resulting mold on the gathering leaves imparts the off-flavor,” Olton explained. Olton said chlorinating the river water and running it through a charcoal filter at the city’s water treatment plant partially eliminates the taint. Rainfall for August in this area has amounted to 3.87 inches, half an inch more than normal, but virtually all of that rainfall came in just two storms. Little or no runoff has been added to the reservoirs so far in August.
August 1983
30 YEARS AGO
Cat Statistics: In 1983, 24.2 million households owned a cat. By 1987, the total had jumped to 27.5 million; and by 1991 to 29.2 million, making felines the number one pet in the country. The total cat population for 1991 was 57 million. Survey results showed the majority of households (58 percent) had only one cat, while 32 percent owned two or three cats. The mean pet food expenditure per cat-owning household was $143.92 annually or approximately $70.88 per cat. Seventy percent of cat-owning households surveyed took their pets to a veterinarian in 1991, a decrease of 8 percent from 1987. Nearly 65 percent of cats taken to a vet received a vaccination.
August 1993
20 YEARS AGO
A U.S.-Canadian probe of last week’s blackout will be quick but thorough so investigators can determine what might be done to prevent a recurrence. U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, Herb Dhaliwal, shook hands as they started their first face-to-face meeting of the joint investigation into the biggest blackout in North American history. Experts studying the outage have pointed to a series of small failures on the northeast Ohio power grid that may have combined to unleash a huge wave of destructive electricity.
August 2003
