Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-02-10

Nequasset very much larger pipes at a
greatly increased cost both for material
and for labor in laying were used than
would have been necessary had Bath
alone instead of Bath and Brunswick
been supplied. This unnecessary addi-
ton to the original construction might
amount to $4,000 to $4,000.
Suppose hereafter Bath desired to ac-
quire the remaining part Of the system
under it's own municipal ownership, is
lit just that it should pay this addition
al and unnecessary sum in order to pur-
chase? Or ION the other hand, would
It not be equally unjust that nobody
should pay for it and thatithe water
company should shaveb that proportion.
of its propertyovaluesteta kena from it
without.any onpensationa contrary to
the expressed Enandatetof the Constitu-
tom? -aft{oz 81. - Inssp afii aai+ r
But by the bill proposed Bath would
not only be saddled in the event of fu-
ture purchase with an unnecessary and
unjust payment, but in the annual dali
ly operation of the Bath end of the
system, after disruption, it would also
be saddled with unnecessary and dis
proportional cost of operation, for the
evidence shows that in all important
respects SO far as the expense of the
Nequasset pumping station is concern
ed it would cost no more except as to
fuel, to operate the entire present sys-
tenn than to operate the Bath end alone.
Now the necessary cost of operation is
a necessary factor in determining the
reasonableness of charge, and in case
of any possible future controversy be-
tween Bath and the Water company
as to the reasonableness of charges the
court must necessarily under the prin-
ciples of law already laid down by it
in the Kennebec Water District case,
burden Bath with an increased water
rate in consequence of the increased
operating cost entailed by this disrup-
ton of the system. We are justified,
therefore, we submit, in saying that
from the standpoint Of Bath the pro-
visions of this bill will entail upon that
city an increased and unjust burden.
But from the standpoint of the Maine
Water Company the provisions of this
bill would work a still greater in
justice. The water company has today
in Brunswick and Bath a complete sys-
tenn, built up at a great expense
through the struggles and experiments
of many years, during all of which up
to the present day it has paid but one
dividend on any part of it's capital
stock, and that dividend of two per
cent only. This system today stands
complete and proportional in all it's
parts. Nowhere overweighted, no.
where underweighted, adjusted toa pro-
per and economical financial operation,
and having now a large and increasing
earning power. This bill proposes to
destroy at once, both the unity and the
financial operation, and having now a
large and increasing earning power
This bill proposes to destroy at once,
both the unity and the financial pro-
portion of this unit pland, and break it
lnp into dismembered and disproportion-
ed fragments, leaving to the company
hereafter the Bath fragment over
weighted both in original cost and in
expense Of daily operation, and taking
| from it the Brunswick fragment, con-
sisting merely of lines of pipe without
either water to be supplied or pumping
station or power to propel that water,
| taking from it a headless trunk and
| leaving to it partially trunkless head.
Such a ACKNOWLEDGMENT of an entire
| system, of what is now business unit,
we submit to be without precedent in
the history of legislation. If any is to
be taken why not the whole, as the
Legislature of this State has hitherto
consistently and invariably done. Every
other community which has sought mu-
nicipal ownership of water plant in
lylac wi tnWnc WQrp
supplied by the same water system has
faced the same problem and has solved
it without difficulty by forming, either
by itself alone or with other municipal
titles among the system supplied, new
water district and then taking in be-
half of that district the water system
as an entirety. The City of Waterville.
desiring municipal ownership, found
about it water system composed Of
four distinct towns, Waterville, Fair
field, Benton and Winslow. Among
those four towns it made up new
water district, offering membership to
each, but settling down finally on Wa
terville and Fairfield alone, and the
new district thus composed took the en-
| tire system by eminent domain and are
to operate it.
| The towns of Dover and Foxcroft,
contiguous, as are Brunswick and
Topsham, found there also a water
system embracing both towns and also
appropriated the entire system.
| The city of Gardiner found about it a
water system supplying itself and al
so the towns of Randolph and Farm
| ingdale, and that city forming a water
district out of part of it's own territory,
by bill now pending before this COM
mittee, proposes to take also the entire
water system, and to this the water
company makes no opposition. This is
| the uniform legislation of this State
and of such a taking of the system as
an entirety we make no opposition; on
the contrary we have ourselves intro
duced a permissive bill giving to
Brunswick, Bath, Topsham and Wool
witch, or any of them singly or in COM
bination Excepting only Topsham or
Woolwich singly), the option to take
this entire system if any of them so
elect.
But from the standpoint of the wa
ter company the gravest objection of