Evening star., 1933-11-12
LITTLE ACHIEVED
BY GAS HEARINGS
Complications Faced With
Accommodating Data at Be.
ginning of Third Week.

The Public Utilities Commissions
valuation hearings on the properties Of
the washington and Georgetown Gas
Light companies will enter their third
week tomorrow, and the parties to the
hearing will be heading toward compli-
Gated issues involving millions of dollars
in valuation and hundreds Of thousands
of dollars in the annual rates charge
able by the companies.
The first two weeks of hearings, al
though they piled up l,136 pages OF
stenographic transcript and 80 exhibits,
some very voluminous, have accom-
plished little except preliminary skir-
mishing. 1t is now practically conceded
that the case cannot possibly be I'm
ished by Thanksgiving as formerly
planned, and that 1t probably viii be
nearer Christmas before the case is
turned over to the commission for final
decision
So far neither side has entered in
the record the final figure which it con-
tends should be the proper valuation.
The companies have put in exhibits
showing that their estimate of the cost
of reproducing their properties as OF
June 30, 1892, is $25.647,833. There
are other claims yet to come, however,
Of items of value to the companies in
addition to their physical properties
The commission has prepared an ex-
hibit on reproduction cost (not yet in
the record) of S21 ,3l5,667, and it is
said that there Is another exhibit COM
ing, on original cost" which is much
lower than this figure.
Depreciation Issue Keen.
None of the figures mentioned make
any allowance for depreciation, and this
is where one of the principal battles is
looked for. The commissions engineers
have made careful studies of all classes
OF physical properties of the companies,
and will come in prepared to testify
that roughly S5,800.000 should be taken
from the cost of reproduction figure be-
cause of depreciation. The company, it
is said, will claim that less than ST.
600, 900 should come Off Thus an issue
involving approximately $5.000.0o0 in
valuation will be squarely presented.
A utility, under prevailing law, is al
lowed to earn reasonable" return on
the value of its property. Taking 6 per
cent as reasonable" (there is no fixed
rule as to what shall be a reasonable
RETURN, it will readily be seen that this
gas rates
Two other issues, not running into
such high figures, but still important,
experts have excluded from their in
ventory the customers service pipes, on
the ground that the customers have
paid for these and therefore they are
not the companies property. The COM
pany engineers are said to have in
cluded them. About $1,200,00 is in
volved here, after allowing for depre-
citation.
The two sets of engineers are also
at odds as to items of property which
are used and useful in the public
service. The difference here, however,
involves only about $4,000.
Progress Is Limited.
So far the hearings have touched
only the question of land and start
on the inventory of physical properties
August G. Klein, chief mechanical engi-
neer of Stone & Webster Engineering
Corporation, Boston, is on the stand
as an expert witness for the companies.
Much of the fireworks of the first two
weeks were given over to attack and
defense of the private conferences be-
tween witnesses authorized by the COM
hearings. The commission, however,
has upheld the propriety of the con-
feTenceS.
One Of the striking incidents to be
revealed by the conferences went into
the record Friday. In that case the
engineers for each party had separately
written to the worthington Pump g.
Machinery Co. of Harrison, N. j., to
inquire about the price Of a certain
pump, part of the companies property.
To the commission engineers the pump
company quoted a price OF $4,000,
while to Stone g. Webster a price OF
SIS 400 was quoted.
When the conferees got together they
were amazed at the difference and
wrote once more to this firm, inquiring
about the reason for this enormous
discrepancy The pump company re-
piled that the $4,000 estimate. given
the commission, was "a serious mis-
take" and that the correct figure was
$5,400. How this happened, their letter
said. they were unable to discover, be-
cause the individual who made the
$4,000 estimate was no longer in their
employ.