Seward daily gateway., 1925-10-06

or SoptomDor, WHICH WOulu eudDIe IHe new rates to go into effect on October first. +l-. 9%'
 The evidence upon which the deci sion of the court is based is the fol lowing Plaintiff claims an invest ment in his business of from $180,O0C 1 to $2OO, ,OOO and asserted that he was entitled to- ten per cent return on that investment. Defendants answer ed, and it is plain, that a town with population of seven hundred to eight hundred, could not pay a profit of $2O, ,OOO a year for electric service Three expert electricians testified in behalf of the defendants, one of them the manager of an electrical business in a neighboring town. All of them agreed that much of the expenditure made by the plaintiff upon his plant was wholly unnecessary to proper conduct of the business; that some of his improvements were not neces- sary part of the business of supplying electric current to the Town of Sew ard. With these conclusions I am obliged to agree. It is undisputed that plaintiff has an excellent plant and buildings as he claims. His pow CT house is a two story cement build ing. The power plant is on the ground floor The second floor is equipped for living rooms for plaintiff and his family and is occupied by them. These | living rooms are clearly unnecessary 1 for the conduct of plaintiffs business and are no part of the investment de voted to the public service. Plaintiff also has cement garage which he ex- plains was built to house truck with which he intended to do hauling ne- cessary in his business. But the gar age is large enough to house several automobiles. A small frame building would have been sufficient to shelter the truck. A great deal of space in the garage is occupied by plaintiff s Studebaker car, which is used by him. self and family. Among the items of expense for the last year is the sum of more than one thousand dollars for fuel which it was stated was coal used to heat the power plant building. It was testified by most of the electri- clans that it is unusual to have heat in power rooms in electrical plants. I am obliged to accept the view that it ! is unnecessary; that most of the con- sumption of fuel was for heating plain tiff's living room upstairs. So the item of fuel, or most of it, should be deducted from plaintiffs statement of the cost of operating his business.
 Plaintiffs power for the generation of electricity of his hydro-electric sys- tenn is water coming from a gulch be- tween mountains on the upper side of town. At the head of this gulch sev- eral miles above town is a glacier and
 
 perpetual snow. In periods of very heavy rains, or extremely warm wea- ther in summer, when ice and snow melt very rapidly, the stream running through the gulch overflows and has several times carried out a part of plaintiffs pipe line. This has caused him great deal of expense as we'll as temporarily cutting off the supply of electric current to the town. In the late winter months the supply of wa ter gets so low that plaintiff is often unable to generate sufficient power for the needs of the town. If the town grows very much this water shortage in the late winter will make it impos- sible for plaintiff to supply the town adequately with current at that sea- son. The supply of water in summer is ample for much more power than the town is likely to need for some years to come. Owing to the frequent difficulty with his water power plain tiff two years ago went further up the stream and installed a new intake built of cement at cost of $22,OOO. All the other electricians who testi- fled in the case expressed the opinion that this cement intake was bad in- vestment. They were all of the opin- ion that his water supply is un- economic and will always remain so and that necessarily with the growth of the town his handicap in that re- spect will become constantly greater. They were of the opinion, and so am l, that he ought to seek another source of water power, one of which at least is available although it would un- doubtedly cost great deal of money to make use of it. I agree with the electricians who think that plaintiff might do very we'll indefinitely with his present water power if he would install an auxiliary plant with twin Diesel engines for use in times of wa ater shortage or other interference with water power generation. I am of the opinion from all the evidence that