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DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2024.2.10| DENK: LIGHTS AND SHADOWS_ INSIGHTOUT 2(2024) 71 good quality. This is evidenced, among other things, by the following extract from a complaint by the di­rector of a large estate about a leaking sewer near the castle: The main municipal sewer running under the pave­ment next to the castle garden is in such bad con­dition that, as has been reported verbally several times, the water has been leaking through the wall of the castle garden for about twenty metres since last summer, so that this whole part of the garden is completely muddy, the garden wall is already da­maged to such an extent that if a thorough repair is not carried out immediately the wall will collapse, causing numerous expenses to the municipality. For the same reason, the repairs made to the sewer in recent years have proved completely fruitless, so that it would not be advisable to remove the exis­ting evil in the same way, especially as the district road committee is reported to have proceeded to widen the bridge at which the sewer comes out, with the consequence that the final part of the se­wer will definitely have to be repaired. 7 However, similar complaints about the pollution of houses and their gardens or other houses with se­wage and waste water are innumerable. Moreover, they were all the subject of frequent neighbourly dis­putes, which in most cases had to be resolved by the council. 8 In August 1931, a general design for a systematic se­werage system for Nové M ě sto na Morav ě was pre­pared. The estimated cost of the project at that time was CSK2,500,000. The town apparently did not originally order a sewage treatment plant as part of this project. Later, however, it was included in the project with a note that its construction would not cause major difficulties in the overall context, but it would be essential for the functioning of the whole project. As part of this project, the town began to bu­ild the sewerage system in stages in different parts of the town and streets. However, the surviving sources show that as early as the early 1940s the municipali­ty began to struggle with its continued construction owing to a lack of funds and throughout the war work proceeded very slowly. Modifications were then made continually throughout the 1940s and 1950s. As a new urban development was being built at the same time, it is not possible to set a clear date for its completion. Finally, the sewage treatment plant was established after 1959 as part of the construc­tion of the first housing estate in Nové M ě sto at Cihel Pond, 9 and in the 1990s another sewage treatment plant was built at the Lou č ka 4 fishing ground(for­merly Bobr ů vka). 10 Water supply Like the sewerage system, the construction of the water supply system was one of the most important municipal projects. From the second half of the nine­teenth century, the quality and availability of water was a frequently addressed issue. The matter of sup­plying the population with quality clean water and eliminating the risk of contamination leading to vari­ous epidemics and increased mortality became more and more important during the period from 1918 to 1938. 11 From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, even in small towns, simple gravity-fed water mains often existed alongside wells, distributing water to houses. 12 Although there are not many archival sources on the water supply of Nové M ě sto, we can 7 SOkA Ž ď ár, AM Nové M ě sto, 789/385, Hygienic conditions 1884–1942: town water supply and sewerage. 8 SOkA Ž ď ár, AM Nové M ě sto, 789/385, Municipal water and sewer system. 9 V. K ř esadlo and M. Kružík, Historický kalendá ř Nového M ě sta na Morav ě na léta 1945–1990 (Nové M ě sto na Morav ě , 2011), 112. 10 K ř esadlo and Kružík, Historický kalendá ř , 176(see n. 9). 11 Kladiwa, Pokludová and Kafková, Lesk a bída, 63(see n. 3). 12 Kladiwa, Pokludová and Kafková, Lesk a bída, 66(see n. 3).