The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-03-26
Clinton's Side of the
metropolitan Scheme.
VALUES DECREASED
Vigorous Efforts to, Secure
Consequential Damages.

81 Clinton, March 25.-Once more. the
Mnilitant spirit of the citizens of this
Gown is aroused to engage in difficult
.nnd unequal battle with the metropolis
tan district-with Boston-for rights
that should be recognized without the
asking, as every citizen believes, and
as some will say to the committee. on
metropolitan affairs, in the state house,
Monday morning.
1t is certain tonight that a large dele
CATION of influential citizens will make
tho trip to Boston. The forces will he
ygmarshalled by Hon. Judge John w
Corcoran.
N They will urge upon the metropolitan
committee the Justice and the morals
that require Clinton consequential dam
age bill to be passed without more de-
! lay.
This bill, laid over by the last Iegis-
!ature has been referred to in The Spy,
but it will do no harm to explain its
terms as often as possible
y The bill provides that the town shall
receive an annuity of $500 from the
state by reason of consequential dam
ages sustained by the construction of
: the Wachusett reservoir 1t also asks
that Clinton receive the benefit, at cost,
exclusive of cost Of dam and reservoir,
Of any electricity that may be general
ed from the waters of the reservoir.
Judge Corcoran explained in detail
the grounds upon which the town
claims the annuity as matter of right
and justice. This was at the meeting
of citizens in the room Of the Clinton
business Mems Association last night.
This town was already the smallest or
N l-1t H. ,TTrr,k
when the occasion for an increased
water supply for the metropolitan dis
trlct arose. 1t embraced a surface of
i seven square miles. One-t third of this
small territory IS now seized for the
reservoir and Clinton presents the
anomaly of a growing town that has
no room in which to grow. Where in 10
or 20 years, there would have been long
streets, populous with the people of
many homes, the waters of the Nashua
river will be assembled in a great lake,
in which fish can live but not tax
payers.
The matter of reimbursement for loss
of income from taxation is the first
authority for the towns demand for an
annuity
By the seizure of one-third of its
taxable area the town is deprived of an
iacome of $1,000 by taxation, or more.
But who can estimate the loss in
taxation of prospective values? Judge
Corcoran will try to show that il is
almost inestimable. 1t is true that the
land taken for the reservoir was the
least valuable. But the property avail
able for building purposes and to ac-
commodate the natural growth of the
town is all taken, and the value of the
unimprOVed land was increasing in
. leaps and bounds
In the destruction of Sawyer's Mills,
the thriving village above the town.
Clinton loses a source of considerable
revenue, although it is perhaps true
that much of the business transacted
at the mills will come to the Lancaster
mills.
There will be a marked depreciation
in the value of real estate by the con-
struction of the big dam. This dam
towering 140 feet above the bed Of the
Nashua river will hold back an artifi-
cial lake of more area in square, miles
than this entire town. There is the
threat unrealzed as it will probably
always be, that this huge body of wa
ter will break from it's artificially-
created bounds and overhelm the com
lpunity With a disaster beside which
the flood at Johnstown was a mere
gushing of a freshet in spring.
& The dam is not the only boundary of
this great reservoir that will be regard
ed with suspicion. The north dyke, now
being dug out of the earth, to be filled
with strippings of the soil, will retain
the same weight of water at an eleva-.
ton of so feet above the higher levels
of the town. The ever-present fear
that the dyke may not retain its wa
ters and that some day a 60-foot wave
may sweep like a broom of death
across the face of life tends also to de-
press real estate values and to make
property sell far. less than it would
before.
The gilded picture of a beautiful lake,
the banks of which will be lined with
summer residences, is a picture in a
silded frame, painted by the metrop-
olitan commissioners to offset the more
pessimistic but the more real picture
of broken dixie and a flood.
Some of the citizens remember that
the Croton reservoirs in New York
gtate, far more wealthy in scenic rich
ness, are not surrounded by handsome
residences to any considerable extent
The loss of a prospective water sup
ply from Sandy pond is an item in the
towns reckoning that will not be en-
tirely overlooked.
Everybody here and throughout the