Your committee on Specifications for Sewers has attempted to carry on investigation and discussion of the subjects brought before it during the 1925 and at the Des Moines Convention.

Careful consideration of all phases of the situation effecting the specifications lead us to believe that the A. S. M. I. should adopt a specification at this time and we hereby recommend that the specification as it now stands be adopted.

When Committee C-4, of the A. S. T. M. reaches an agreement on their specification for "Dimensions" and "Variations" this body can, if it is deemed necessary, make amendments in regard thereto, which will conform with the A. S. T. M. findings.

CONVENTION REPORT

Mr. President and members of the Society, the specifications committee on Sewers made a preliminary report and it is published. Doubtless you have read it. We are recommending to this body the adoption of the present specification. All points brought out throughout the year were discussed and each one was taken up item by item and passed by unanimous consent. We are recommending the adoption of this specification and the addition of a clause at the end of the specification for the benefit of small towns who will use it, and who do not employ a city engineer, leaving it to the contractor. The cautionary clause that we recommend reads, "The consumer or purchaser is cautioned against using materials herein specified without obtaining reliable engineering advice as to the adaptability of the material for the purpose for which it is to be used." That is a foot-note.

DISCUSSION

PRESIDENT HATTON : This report of the committee on Sewers has been before you in the advanced publication, having been circulated. The membership have had ample time to look over it and criticize it through Mr. Allen and now Mr. Allen reports that his committee believes it should be approved and go out to letter ballot for general approval of the Society. The matter is open for discussion and the Chair is willing to entertain any discussion of the matter.

A MEMBER: I move that the report be accepted and approved.
A MEMBER: I second the motion.

PRESIDENT HATTON: You have heard the motion; all in favor of this motion will say aye; opposed, no. The "ayes" have it.

MR. ALLEN: Last year there were two or three clauses left pending the reaching of an agreement by Committee C-4. That committee has not yet reached an agreement. At the same time Mr. Rankin was instructed as representative on the A. S. T. M. committee to ask them to prepare a specification for reinforced concrete pipe. Mr. Rankin informed me today that he had brought up this subject, but they had not yet decided as to what committee would properly have cognizance of the subject. I desire at this time to move that our secretary request the American Society for Testing Materials to prepare a specification for reinforced concrete sewer pipe.

PRESIDENT HATTON: Do I hear a second?

A MEMBER: I second that motion.

PRESIDENT HATTON: You have heard the motion; all in favor of this motion will say aye; opposed, no. The "ayes" have it.

MR. KINGSLEY: I have all the confidence in the world in the American Society for Testing Materials. I think it is a splendid organization and doing a wonderful work, and we engineers are entitled to congratulation because of the American Society for Testing Materials; but if this committee of ours, as Mr. Allen has suggested, has already labored with that organization in an endeavor to assist it or to be assisted and has not accomplished anything, I do not see any particular use in our society laying down on the job and asking the American Society for Testing Materials to do something for us. I think the American Society for Municipal Improvements can do that work as well as the American Society for Testing Materials; and I propose that motion.

PRESIDENT HATTON: As the chair understands, the fact of the approval of the specifications as presented to us by the committee. on Sewers is not to be delayed on account of the inertness of the American Society for Testing Materials committee on Reinforced Sewer Pipe. We want this sewer specification approved now, because it must be printed and sent out to our members, as our secretary informed us in the Executive Committee meeting yesterday. If this is approved as presented by the specification committee we will have it printed and then when the American Society for Testing Material committee decides upon the reinforced concrete pipe, we shall simply

then print an appendix, or print a specification covering the American Society for Testing Materials and send it out with the general specification.

MR. KINGSLEY: Our committee's report, as made by Mr. Allen, has been adopted?

PRESIDENT HATTON: Yes; that is true.

MR. KINGSLEY: And that goes to letter ballot?
PRESIDENT HATTON: Yes; it does.

MR. KINGSLEY: Then why go to the American Society for Testing Materials and ask them to do something that may change it.

MR. ALLEN: There has been no specification prepared for this sewer pipe. They were delaying a decision on the point in order to find out what committee should take cognizance of it. We are asking the same thing in order to get a co-ordinate specification prepared.

MR. KINGSLEY: Have we any assurance that the American Society for Testing Materials is proceeding toward that end or are they quarreling about jurisdictional matters?

MR. ALLEN: When this request comes in they will definitely decide. what committee shall handle the subject.

MR. KINGSLEY: Then I withdraw my motion. I had not understood the situation.

MR. FISK: Will the American Society for Testing Materials write specifications for reinforced sewer pipe? They will write a specification for testing of reinforced pipe, but it is a question in my mind whether they will write a specification for the pipe itself. The function. of the American Society for Testing Materials is the testing of materials, as its name indicates, but I doubt if they would write a specification for the pipe itself.

PRESIDENT HATTON: I will submit that question to Mr. Rankin at this time.

MR. RANKIN: The American Society for Testing Materials not only writes testing specifications but it writes specifications for the materials themselves. I represent Committee C-4 on Clay and Cement Sewer Pipe and we not only specify the breaking test for it but we specify the dimensions and the absorption tests and anything else that goes to the making of the pipe; so that, no doubt, the same procedure will be carried out in the matter of reinforced concrete. It is a question whether it should be referred to Committee C-4 or to a separate committee. That has not as yet been decided.

PRESIDENT HATTON: Shall the Secretary be instructed, on behalf of the Society, to request the A. S. T. M., through its Secretary, to expeditiously prepare a specification for reinforced concrete sewer pipe?

MR. FISK: I make that motion.

MR. KINGSLEY: I second it.

PRESIDENT HATTON: You have heard the motion; all in favor of this motion will say aye; opposed, no. The "ayes" have it.

(The sewer specifications presented to the 1923 convention were later adopted as a standard by letter ballot, therefore only the amending paragraph was submitted for letter ballot this year.)

REPORT OF CANVASSING COMMITTEE OF VOTES CAST BY LETTER BALLOT.

Vote on the amendment to the present specifications for sewers.

Yes, 108; Noes, 9.

E. R. KINSEY,
W. W. HORNER,
C. L. HAWKINS.

The report of Messrs. Bowles and Kemmler on Street Railway Pavements and Track Construction submitted to the Society at Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26th-30th, 1925, was referred to next year's committee

"to study the report carefully and if the Committee sees
fit to proceed with the subject of revision, it should arrange
for a joint committee of the A. S. M. I. and the A. E. R. E. A.
to the end that recommendations in form and substance satis-
factory to both organizations can be submitted for the ap-
proval of both organizations."

In accordance with the above recommendation your Committee has carefully studied the report of Messrs. Bowles and Kemmler, and, after careful consideration, does not deem it wise, at the present time to recommend any changes in the present specifications.

The specifications are new, but they were written after a great deal of consideration had been given to them by the Joint Committee of the A. S. M. I. and the A. E. R. E. A. We believe it would be well to allow these specifications to stand for a few years or until a real need for their revision is shown.

In the meantime this Committee will consider carefully all matters pertaining to tracks submitted to it.

If complaints should be made by members of the A. S. M. I. that certain details of track construction work are not satisfactory our Committee, working in conjunction with the Committee of the A. E. R. E. A. will furnish to the complainant information as to the locality. where similar types of construction are in successful use, and with