Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1905-06-30

/ tier 6onaS, asserts the Times in
an editorial, in the issue of the
"a inst.
May not all other statements
prophesying rs per cent re-
ductlon in insurance rates in Cor
Wallis after the installation of a
gravity system here be equally as
unreasonable as were the ante
boDd-eleetion statements by Dal-
las newspapers?
WATER RATES.
Rates now charged for noun
tain water in Dallas are 81. so
per month for family; so cents
additional for each bath tub, so
cents additional for each water
closet, and 81. rs per month for
each lot 100 feet square, making
the total for summer months
$4.75 per family. In addition,
| so cents is charged for each COW
or horse a family may own. The
ice factory pays $500 per day for
its water, in addition to the well
water it uses. Hotels pay $40
per month; livery stables $40 per
! month; $24 per month is charg-
ed for sprinkling the lawn sur
rounding the courthouse, and SIS
per month is charged for the use
of water in the building. The
court house grounds are one
block in size.
Before the bond election in Dal-
las the citizens were lead to be-
lieve that water rates would be
$I.25 OF less per family. En-
gineer Miller uses $I.2 as a
basis in his estimate on the
city's revenues. Who will
guarantee that Corvallis water
rates, should the proposed plant
be installed, will not be the same
as Dallas, viz: $4.25 per month?
Can any one guarantee that it
will net be?
COST OF RIGHT OF WAY.
Three thousand dollars in cash,
besides the cost in lawsuits over
damage cases, was the. price Dal-
las had to pay for right of way
and water rights before eomp1et-
ing construction work on her wa
ter system. This sum would
have been much larger but fol
the fact that Judge Boise and a
Mrs. >Halleck owned most Of the
land along the pipe line route
and mere nominal sum was all
they asked as damages. One man
got $3.50 damage for crossing a
tract of 20 acres, beside having
the cost of the lawsuit about
800 assessed to the city.
The owner of q small sawmill on
the stream below the one from
which the water was taken was
allowed $500 damages and costs
by the court although the mill
was abandoned 7 years a 90. All
other drlnages settled with the
city for from $50 to 500 each.
If the damages for right Of
way for miles cost $1,000 and
several lawsuits, how many dol
lars and how many lawsuits will
I6 Hlniles cost?
CAUSE OF HIGH WATER RATES.
Dallas has approximately 400
families within its city limits; of
these less than SO per cent are us
ing the cily's water III spite OF
the fact that it was asserted and
believed before the plaIt was in
stalled that all, or almost all,
would discard their wells for
mountain water, and it was upon
this hypothesis that a rate of
SIPS per month for all purposes
was confidently asserted to be the
maximum rate that would be
charged.
As only half the number ex.
pected made connections with the
mains, the rates were simply raised
to meet the deficiency. The rea-
son that mountain water did Eo,
prove as popular as expected was
that citizens in poor or moderate
circumstances, and many plenty
able to pay the price, hesitated
to incur an expense of from $40
to $40 per family for water and