THE CATSKILL WATERSHED.

THE watershed of the Catskill creek, the Esopus, and the east branch of the Delaware river, all of which lie and are in the State of New York, and are, besides, of ample capacity and sufficient elevation for storage facilities, appears to elicit the favorable consideration of Mr. Birdsall, the chief engineer of water supply of this city, as the most desirable source of additional water supply. We are pleased to note the fact that Mr. Birdsall, notwithstanding the determined opposition of prominent officials and citizens, possesses convictions, accompanied by the courage required to declare them. The fact that the Ramapo Water company was unable to obtain a contract to supply the city of New York with water, and the additional fact that the same company holds water right options, should form no bar to the city’s seeking to acquire the same by condemnation proceedings. The people of New York require more water and plenty of it. Mr. Freeman, an engineer of reputation, was engaged by Mr. Coler, comptroler of the city, to investigate several watersheds, with a view to determine which would be the best for New York city. He reported in favor of adopting his plan to bring the water from Ten Mile river, a stream which drains a part ot Connecticut, as well as New York. Mr. Freeman’s report is an elaborate one; unfortunately, however, analysis of it reveals a determined prejudice against the use of any water over which tne Ramapo Water company possessed a proprietary right. The report was rather in the direction of aiding Mr. Coler in his determined opposition to favoriug anything in the way of absorbing the water privileges of a corporation that bad provoked his hostility. The main question is, not the fight between Ramapo and Mr. Coler, hut rather, what is the best thing to do for New York city. If the Ramapo Water company has anything in the way of water rights that the city of New York requires, it may be obtaiued by due process of law. If the proper officers of the department of water supply are convinced that the watersheds herein referred to are suitable and ample for the requirements of the city, and are superior in all respects to those mentioned by Mr. Freeman in his report to Mr. Coler, then they should be sustained and adopted, and the property condemned We believe Mr. Birdsall’s position on the question to be the sound one. These watersheds of the Catskills are remote from the influences of pollution and contamination, and bid fair to remain so for generations to come, which IN more than can tie said of the Ten Mile river (Housatonic shed) or the wild scheme of pumping the Hudson river water at Poughkeepsie and then filtering it. It also seems to UH that there Is a great tendency on the part of Mr. Coler’s supporters to ignore tbo fact that the Catskill watershed lies altogether within the Slate of New York and is, therefore, essentially a home watershed, one with which no authorities outside of the State can interfere—in a word, is subject only to that home rule of which Mr. Coler is such an ardent supporter. If, on the coutrary, the Ten Mile river source were to be adopted, one of two expensive conditions must be satisfied. Either Now York city, which means the taxpayers, must buy off the claims of the State of Connecticut and those of all who claim water rights in that State, which will lie a very costly operation, or the city of New York cannot enjoy an unclouded title to the water of the aforesaid river, because of the infinite number of legal complications that would surely arise between the municipal authorities of this city and the private rights of citizens as well as of the town,county, and State authorities in Connecticut These might involve injunction upon injunction and appeal upon appeal, terminating most probably in an appeal to the Supreme court of the United States. The amount of expense this would entail upon the taxpayers of New York would stagger the community—whose suit might be defeated in the end, whereby a lot of money would go to enrich only, the lawyers, while in the meantime the work of providing the city with a supplementary supply would be hindered, pending a decision one way or the other, and someone else might step in and absorb the Catskill watershed, leaving New Yorkers literally as well as morally high and dry aud without any means of adding to their water supply, which after so many years of the law’s delays would have become so diminished as to have reduced the citizens of New York to the direst straits without their seeing any way out of their difficulty. Wherefore, on every accouut, whether of security of tenure, abundance and purity of the water and the possibilities of keeping it pure, economy, and lack of delay in the setting to work at once on the task of placing this city beyond the chances of a water famine, the Catskill watershed is the one to be preferred before those of the Ten Mile river, or the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, with its costly accompaniments of giant pumping and filtration plants.