The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1914-04-10
The Providence Water Act
April 7th. 1914.

|
To the Editor of the Olneyville Times:
| notice in the Providence papers of
March 27th, that Scituate people
found out some more things about
what Engineer Gray and Councilman
Potter ct al. do not know"
For over a year, and at much ex-
pense Of money, there has been con
Quoted what might be called practical
ly, still hunt, by a city committee
Until publicity was compelled, in
order to get the Act prepared for the
Legislature, after the City Solicitor
had done his worst, no shouting from
the house tops had been noticed.
| 1t appears that the main fear of the
/ Providence Crowd was, that the peo-
pie of Scituate would discover what
was going on which discovery would
prevent the obtaining options on prop
erty at so low price as they desired,
and in fact permit the citizens of
| Scituate to form a defence, with
which to combat the proposition.
But time finally arrived when Sc
crecy could no longer be maintained
and Immediately the business Of Sc
curing options on Scituate homes be
came active
Meetings at Scituate, and in Provi-
dence have been held since the pub
licity began, TO educate the people of
Scituate by the Providence people,
with a desire to show the Scituate
people the Moses that was to lead
them to afIluenCe and the sight of a
beautiful Lake, submerging the lands
of their ancestors, and driving them
out OF the place of their birth, and
from all sight of their life associa.
tions. What JOY TO contemplate.
Moses seems TO be working over
time, but the people Of Scituate some
how don't appear to lead cheerfully, |
they seem to lack faith i'm statements |
handed out TO them by the Providence
crowd and ask all kinds of annoying !
questions, some of which seem 10 be !
difficult to answer, some questions are
pertinent and some answers are i'm |
pertinent, which is a poor method of |
securing a satisfactory understanding |
in the face Of methods already eJu
ployed by the Providence committee |
At a meeting in Providence early in |
March Il think the Scituate people |
we're told the acreage required would |
be about thirty square miles, which |
would embrace over 10000 acres, and |
they were also informed that the dam
would be possibly thirty feet high. or
maybe eighty-fve feet, and it might be-
one hundred and ten feet high, they
were not able 10 learn from anyone |
just how high.
If the last height was employed,
where would North Scituate be found,
that is, how deep in the water, as well
as every place below IL down 10 Kent,
also up the other branch OF the Ponan-
gansett
The Providence committee states
they were using providence and vi
cinity) 2j,O0O,000 gallons daily now,
which, IL a fact, should be looked into,
for they are using too much.
They also state that they want to
provide for 10O,000,000 gallons per
day, which is more than would be re
quired for city Of over 100000 pop
ulation, and Providence is too close TO
several large cities to ever grow 10
that size
Even II Il required 100, 100000 gal
Ions per day in the prospective. 60
would hardly seem the part Of pru.
dence to install a system at this time
that would be so I'm excess OF all de
mands for several generations 70
come. Would it not show better I
judgment to provide for supplying va.
ter in such quantities as would be
sufficiently In excess Of the demands