In the typical American city are the fire plugs and the potable water supply fed from the same source?
Are the plugs fed with fully treated (drinkable) water?
Plugs=fire hydrants.
Yes, hydrants are part of the main line that serve houses with drinkable water. With as infrequently as hydrants are used in fire protection, it would be absolutely impractical to have a separate line for them.
Hydrants play several other roles in water distribution. They can be used to let air out of the system, especially when the watermain is first installed and filled, and they can be opened periodically to flush out potential pockets of stagnant water or settled particles (sand, metal flakes, rust).
The vast majority of fire hydrants across the country are indeed on the potable water supply.
In large cities, however, there are commonly seperate systems for drinking water and hydrants in the high-value (downtown commercial) areas. Providence, RI, Boston, and Philadelphia (and I’m sure many, many more cities) have what are called high pressure hydrants, they run on a seperate system of mains. In Providence, the hydrants have 4 2-1/2" hose ports instead of the 2 2-1/2" hose and single 4-1/2" steamer ports. Boston’s high pressure hydrants are funny looking too, but I don’t remember exactly how to discern them from the regular post hydrants.
Boston’s high pressure service actually uses remotely started pumps that can boost the pressure up to (IIRC) 200 psi. Normal water service doesn’t go above 100ish, for the most part.
Don’t even get me started on Lowry chucks and dry hydrants…
The first high pressure hydrant system was the Birdsall Holly pumping system. I believe Rochester, NY in 1874 was the first large city to install it, although Holly may have tried it out earlier in his smaller home city of Lockport, NY. The system was placed in 2000 cities and villages, so it was omnipresent in the U.S. in the 19th century.
I would be surprised if there were any large American cities that didn’t have separate systems today.
Wait, how was this about water towers?
`Cause water towers supply the water pressure and contain the potable water supply for the city. I was wondering if the same towers supplied the pressure for the plugs.