Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-08-30
TWO IMMEDIATE REMEDIAL
MEASURES

A MOVEMENT is on foot TO introduce
at the next meeting of Councils an
ordinance to provide for the compulsory
installation of water meters to prevent
waste. 1t may be unwise at this time
to order universal meter service, unless
liberal time is given in which to comply
with the order. There ought however, to
be no great difficulty in getting through
Councils an ordinance giving the Water
Bureau immediate authority to compel
the use of meters in places where waste
is notorious. Backed by such authority,
the bureau, we are convinced, would be
able in very short time to effect material
economies in consumption.
| But even a meter service under present
conditions cannot be the efficient remedy
against waste that 1t ought to be. The
was actually in 1914 "a net reduction of
about s215.O00 from metered properties
| from what the returns from those prop.
critics would have been under schedule
rates" The established meter rate is
| cents per 1000 gallons. In New York it
is 12 cents, or three times as much; in
Boston and a number of other cities, 10
cents. The Water Bureau has recon-
mended that fair charges for Phladel
phia would be IL cents, s cents and 4
cents per 1000 gallons, for domestic, inter-
mediate and manufacturing rates, respec-
lively. The minimum rate for minimum
consumers quoted by the Springfield Con-
solidated Water Company, operating in
the suburbs, is 40 cents per 1000 gallons,
and the very lowest rate it offers to con-
sumers using as much as 100000 an
nually is 121z cents
At the meter rates proposed by the
bureau 1t is a fact that most residences,
and practically all small residences would
get water actually at lower cost than at
present.
At present rates the city positively loses
money whenever meter is installed.
Under the proposed rates there would
be an increase OF revenue and a saving OF
water. Thus two birds would be killed
with one stone, without the placing OF
any additional burden whatever on the
owner Of any two-story house in Philadel-
phia, unless that owner carelessly wasted
water
There are, therefore, two things which
should be attended to promptly by Coun-
ellis:
l. Compulsory change to meters for those
properties which do not fully pay
under the schedule rating for the
water they use or waste.
2. An immediate readjustment of meter
rates.
These steps, both of them, are remedial
and frankly preliminary to a general ref
ormation in the management of the water
works and the placing OF the whole utility
on a scientific business basis. They will
relieve, not solve. the situation,
The whole water question intimately
affects every taxpayer, as does the anti
quated system under which certain other
municipal bureaus are operating. In
view of the promised heavy increase of
the tax rate for next year, which will be
the tribute Of citizens to the inefficiency
which has characterized city government
for a number OF years, it is of the very
greatest Importance that the campaign
be begun at once for the correction of
outstanding evils and the mobilization of
the municipalities resources in such
way as to assure economy and a fair
yield from invested sums. 1t is a busi-
ness problem and only incidentally a po-
litical problem