New Jersey Water News.

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New Jersey Water News.

At South Orange a water famine is not feared, and President Carroll P. Bassett of the Commonwealth Water company, at Summit, states there will be no further trouble experienced with the water situation and that matters will be satis factorily adjusted in a short time. Improvements are being made at the plant which, when com pleted, would materially increase the water supply. They are progressing in the work of making a connection with the East Orange water main, although they hope there will be no occasion to call on the sister city for relief. At the point of connection a water meter will be installed in order to tell what the consumption is, if they are obliged to take East Orange water.

The State water supply commission at Trenton has decided that until the Hudson County Water Company actually attempt s to divert water, comingled from surface and subterranean sources, to Staten Island, no action will be taken to restrain the proposed diversion. This decision was reached after Attorney-General Edmund Wilson had advised, during an informal conference, that the injunction granted in 1905 restraining the company from diverting potable surface water of the State to Staten Island is still in force. The object of the conference was to obtain the views of the attorney-general as to the commission’s powers under the law to prevent the diversion of either surface or subterranean waters afid to ascertain how far they might proceed to prevent anticipated diversion in advance. Mr. Wilson states that in his opinion the act under which the commission w-as created gives it no jurisdiction or control over waters obtained from subterancan sources. Accordingly nothing will be done to interfere with the Hudson Water Company’s plans for piping water from the driven wells at Belleville for the use of Staten Island until such time as the water may be mingled with that from the Passaic river at Little Falls. The injunction referred to was granted by Vice-Chancellor Bergen in 1905 and was confirmed by the Court of Errors and Appeals. Whether the diverting of a mixture of surface and sub-surface water, which is the company’s plan to save building a separate pipe line from Belleville to Bayonne, is a violation of the terms of this injunction is the question that the courts will be called on to decide.

Auburn, N. Y., is about to install a filtration plant, near the proposed new low-pressure pumping station. The water in the filtration beds will run off into mains that will conduct it to the present lower pumping station, where the engines will force it into the city mains purified and under high pressure for fire purposes. The cost of the plant is not yet known; but Messrs. Hazen and Whipple, New York water experts, are charged with the task of preparing the estimates and plans.

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New Jersey Water News

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New Jersey Water News

By its timely adoption of meters, Jersey City has avoided the necessity for spending millions on a new source of water supply, and by establishing a modern meter-testing laboratory and inspection of meters it has added to that system of safeguarding. There has been an increase in revenues from the sale of water, while the consumption of water was less in 1908 than it was in 1907. Also, this meter inspection has resulted in a reduction of $192.50 per day in payment by the city for water to the Jersey City Water Supply company, which still controls the municipal plant. W hile the meter inspection and the testing laboratory have proved expensive, it is, nevertheless. true that the deficit of 1906-1907 has been converted into a handsome net revenue for 190809, and the total expenses of the department have been reduced by 5.4 per cent.—Jersey City has won a victory over the Lackawanna railway, which had sought to enjoin the city from interfering with the laying and operation of a water pipe along its right of way. The city refused to give the railway the right to cross Westside avenue with a pipe by which the Hudson County Water company proposed to furnish the terminal of the railroad with water. The court refused to grant an injunction, on the ground that the water company was not made a party to the proceedings. If the water company should be made a party in any subsequent suit, the court holds that the Federal courts would be without jurisdiction, and, therefore, any subsequent redress which may be sought by the railway must be bv recourse to the State courts.—Jersey City has ordered the Jersey City Water Supply company to stop the chemical treatment of the water that is supplied to Jersey City from Boonton for drinking purposes. Jersey City has objected legally to this chemical treatment of the water that is claimed by the water company to be an efficacious and cheap way of purifying the sevvaee that is emptied intothe Rockaway river from Dover, Boonton and other towns along the river. The Jersey City Water Supply company is trying to evade the cost of constructing intercepting sewers and a sewage-disposal plant for these Rockaway river towns and is setting up that 8 lb. of chloride of calcium will purify 1,000,000 gal. of water. It has established a sterilisation plant at Boonton and is daily treating the water.

Branchville will install a $20,000 gravity waterworks system.

The Rockaway water supply, not being at all what it should be, a new plan has been proposed to solve the problem of a more adequate supply of water for the borough during the dry season. It was devised by Stewart M. Neff, of New York, the contractor who built the Rockaway waterworks twelve years ago. Mr. Neff’s plan is considered feasible, less expensive and likely to answer the purpose. It is to transform the wide ravine south of and adjoining the present reservoir into a large storage-basin. It would cover from 3 to 4 acres and hold about 8,000,000 or 10,000,000 gal. of the water which is now going to waste.

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