Holló Szilvia Andrea: Budapest's Public Works - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Natural or artificial?

the municipality tried to improve the lives of its employees by giving up a part of the safety zone belonging to the Káposztásmegyer waterworks to those intending to cultivate it as a vegetable garden. Due to the influx of wartime refugees, water consumption rose to unexpected levels, which was further raised by the increasing amounts of water used of the war factories, and the daily demand of 290 cubic metres could only be met by the overexploitation of the existing wells. Restrictions became increasingly frequent, even though this could have been averted with the construction of a new plant supplying raw water from the Danube had the required funds been available.

Several attempts were made to stop wasteful use. As an alternative to flat rates, the instalment of meters was recommended to customers, a measure made mandatory the following year.

Hardly had the country recovered from the war when the next problem presented itself. On 10 February 1923, the soil was washed out from below the twin mains in Káposztásmegyer, and where the concrete foundations were insufficient, cracks appeared in the piping. As the water of the overflowing Danube leaked into the water- mains system, which had to be turned off as a consequence and thus 70 percent of the water extracted was lost. But the capacities of the Újlak waterworks and the terraces at the Parliament Buildings were only sufficient for supplying water to the lower lying areas of the inner city districts. Until the floods receded, supplies were restricted to five hours a day, but night-time restrictions were not to be lifted before 1925.

The Waterworks utility was once again reorganised as of 1 January 1930, from which time on its status was changed to that of a "non-commercial company with independent asset management." After a three-year preparatory period, large- scale technical expansions were undertaken: the engine rooms were modernised, the system was switched over to electric operation, more than two hundred piped wells were added to the network, and two crossable tunnels were bored to from the Szentendre Island to the Káposztásmegyer engine room. Modernisation progressed by leaps and bounds as if the authorities had wanted to make up for all the wartime arrears in a matter of a few years. An iron/manganese filter unit was added to the central plant at Káposztásmegyer and the clogged-up wells were enhanced with radial extractors.

The next improvement also stalled with the outbreak of World War II. The system was severely damaged at more than a thousand points during the air raids and the siege of Budapest, with all the pipes affixed to the Danube bridges eliminated, the main on Váci út destroyed, and the Kőbánya water tower, the Gellért Hill reser62