The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-01-14
EAST JERSEYS GRIP
1t Clutches Newark So Hard
That the City Is Gasp
ing for Water.
PUMPING ENGINES STARTED
The Company Will Not Furnish
One Drop More Than the
Contract Amount of
27,5oo, 600 Gal
Ions a Day.
A MIGHTY SCHEME BEHIND IT
East Jersey Wants to Control the
Newark Plant for Fifteen
Years After 1900
A MIGHTY SCHEME BEHIND IT

which a contract for permanent supply
of weter has been awarded by the Street
and Water Commissioners, which award
has been concurred in by the Board of
Finance and is now before Mayor Wan
ser for disposition, is putting the screws
on the city of Newark in great shape. The
company Is forcing Newark to live up to
her contract to such an extent that dur
ing the past week the Street and Water
Commissioners of that city were compelled
to start their old abandoned pumping sta
ton in order TO give consumers an ade-
quate supply OF water.
The Pequamnock plant which the East
Jersey Company built for Newark is to
cost Sc. 0000o and is to be turned over to
the city In 1900. AT that time the COM
pany must guarantee the city a daily sup
ply OF at least 5o.OOo,000 gallons.
In the meantime the city is allowed to
draw from the Pequannock plant mot more
than 27.5ooooo gallons a day. Newark has
already paid s3.5O0.000 ON account Of Its
contract.
The average daily consumption of that
city is 25.00o00o, so that since the contract
was made the city has been running on q
very narrow margin Every year the
consumption naturally increases. and 1T is
with alagun, 1T is said, THAT the city Off
cials have discovered that 2750o,0o0 daily
win be Insufficient TO meet the demands of
the city before 1900.
The East Jersey people know the pre-
dfcament Newark Is tn and have already
mapped out a scheme whereby they ex-
pect to force the city into an agreement
whereby the time for the surrender of
the plant to Newark VIII be deferred until
1915, or fifteen years beyond the time speci-
fed in the original contract
Some of the Newark Oflcia1s. 1T is re-
ported have declared that they will
pump from the Passaic In order to make
up the quantity required, rather than fur
ther place the city tn the clutches of the
water company
On the other hand there are officials
who want to make the arrangement
which has been suggested by the COM
pany. The stand the company has taken
against Newark was demonstrated last
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday dur
ing the cold snap. In cold weather priv
ate consumers and factories to prevent
water from freezing turn on the faucets
and allow the water to run day and
night. Consequently the consumption. is
increased to 100000, and sometimes S5-
100000 gallons day. The city's reser-
vo.rs were drawn almost dry on Tues
day. The East Jersey people were APP
peaied to turn more than the specified
27.5o0o00 gallons into the MAINS
The request was met with a fat re-
fusal and the officials were reminded in
plain terms that Newark was entitled to
only 27.5o0oO0 daily. and that she would
not get another gallon more.
Appeals being fruitless the Street and
Water Commissioners started up the old
pumping plant. Water was not drawn
from the Passaic but from a hundred or
more three-inch artesian wells which
nave been sunk near the pumping sta
eion and from percolatirlg basins which
nave been constructed there recently.
tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last
week about 100000 gallons were pumped
ana IN that way only was water famine
prevented
In the meantime the East Jersey Com
pany was furnishing this city, Bayonne,
kearny and one or two other municipali-
ties with an adequate supply of water
from the plant on which Newark has
paid s3,50O,0O0.
The action of the company in squeez-
ing Newark has caused unfavorable
comment in official circles in this city.
many of those interested declaring that
masmuch as the plant was built for
Newark that city should have the first
call on the water, no matter what kind
Oh an agreement exists
When the East Jersey Company made
Its contract with Newark it was agreed
that the company should be permitted to
sell all the water over the q, 500 900 gal
Ions given Newark to whom it pleased
until 1900. and at such prices as it could
obtain. When the plant was finished it
will be remembered that the CARRYING ca
pacity of the pipe was found to be about
IS, 100000 gallons daily instead of 5o.Ooo.ooo
as had been reckoned on.
Readers of 1.-THE News, VIII doubtless
remember the dramatic scene that oc-
CURED at the Belleville floodgates the day
the temporary supply was turned ON, En-
gineer Herschel and a score of assistants
were flying about like chickens with sore
heads. The telephone between Belleville
and the Macopin Dam were kept ringing
continuously. Newark's supply was chop
ped off somewhere, but the big Ventura
meter which had been set UP at the food
gates refused in a most aggrayating man
ner to register any more than seven or
eight million gallons flowing into Jersey
Cdty's main. For q half hour the uncer-
tainty continued and then the star per-
FORMER of the occasion, Clement Herschel,
broke down completely. He wept bitterly
and shed somewhere in the neighborhcod
of a million gallons of salted Pequannock
tears He had made ssthe error of his
afe::" he had ruined his reputation
while the VILLAIN, in the person of amazed
Jersey City officials and citizens, pursued
him. The day was too cold to permit of
the extraction Of sympathy. In fact some