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But there is another point worthy of consideration, and that is the rapidly increasing tendency toward municipal control of certain matters of public necessity and convenience in which the entire people, all classes and conditions, have substantially an equal interest. In our early history turnpikes, owned by private corporations, were common; toll bridges the rule, and towns and cities often obtained their water supply from private companies. Now, turnpikes and toll bridges are relics of the past; the water supply in large towns is almost without exception now furnished by the municipality, and street lighting by the city is already being considered and adopted to quite an extent. Whether it is not feasible and economical for cities to generate and supply by electricity heat as well as light, is a question already mooted. If generally adopted within twenty-five years it would be no stranger than the progress of the last quarter of a century. But laying this possibility aside, the matter of lighting is a present issue, and one of greater importance in this city than in any other on account of the large number of buildings to be lighted at public expense. Already several measures providing for Government ownership of a lighting plant have been proposed.

All the area of more than 100 feet elevation above low water at the navy-yard is now supplied by pumping, and for want of sufficient pressure all above 75 feet will probably soon require it. The line of 100 feet elevation runs in the vicinity of Florida avenue, and of 75 feet in the vicinity of Massachusetts avenue, west of Eleventh street. The time can not be far distant when a large majority of the residences will be elevated above this line. The vicinity of Tenallytown has an elevation of more than 400 feet above low tide. The pumping is now done at the pump house on U street, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth, at a large expense, and this expense will be constantly increasing as higher lands about the city are built up and higher buildings constructed. It might be done with great saving for the future by electricity generated by the water power at Great Falls.

If the entire power at Great Falls is acquired, we believe it will be ample for electric lighting and pumping purposes for the city. The Great Falls Power Company have very recently obtained new charters from the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland. Their purpose is evidently to develop the power and supply it directly, or through other companies, to the city for lighting and other purposes. There are no improvements now at Great Falls, except the aqueduct dam, built and owned by the United States. If the Government is ever to acquire control it should be done before any outlay is made by the other owners. Such outlay must be to them a questionable investment, in view of the fact that the Government is sure to require an increased supply from time to time in the future, thus endangering the business of the power company and destroying or greatly lessening the value of their improvements, with the risk that they may not be sufficiently recompensed. Your committee are, therefore, of the opinion that all the water and riparian rights at Great Falls necessary for the control and use of the entire power should be acquired at this time; that it will be a wise economy to do so; that ownership in part by the United States and in part by private business corporations is a relation unwise and unsafe for the Government, and should be terminated at once; that the other owners can afford to surrender their rights now on much better terms for the Government than after they have made their improvements, and that no outlay of money can contribute more than this to the future welfare of the capital of the country.

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, U. S. ARMY,

Washington, D. C., March 24, 1894.

SIR: I have the honor to return herewith S. 1359 (Fifty-third Congress, second session), "A bill to amend an act approved July 15, 1882, entitled 'An act to increase the water supply of the city of Washington, and for other purposes,' "" with letter of the Committee on the District of Columbia, U. S. Senate, of March 9, 1894, and other papers referred to this office therewith.

Attention is invited to the remarks herewith of Col. G. H. Elliot, Corps of Engineers, in immediate charge of the Washington Aqueduct, and to the amendments of the bill recommended by that officer. Certain of these amendments are indicated in Copy A of the bill, herewith.

But Col. Elliot states that it is not apparent that the bill thus amended, having become a law, would authorize the use by the United States of water, acquired under the bill, for actuating hydraulic machinery (turbines) located below the falls, and also suggests additional amendments looking to the taking of all of the water flowing at Great Falls. These additional amendments are indicated on Copy B of the bill, herewith.

I concur in the recommendation that the bill be amended as indicated on Copy B, and further recommend that, if the bill is to become a law, it shall be so worded as

to enable the United States not only to acquire title to all lands and water rights at and in the vicinity of the Great Falls, but also to use the water so taken to actuate machinery located anywhere, in connection with the public service of the District of Columbia.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. DANIEL S. LAMONT,

THOS. LINCOLN CASEY, Brigadier-General, Chief of Engineers.

Secretary of War.

OFFICE OF THE WASHINGTON AQUEDUCT,
Washington, D. C., March 20, 1894.

GENERAL: In respect of bill S. 1359, Fifty-third Congress, second session, “A bill to amend an act approved July 15, 1882, entitled An act to increase the water supply of the city of Washington, and for other purposes," which you sent me on the 9th instant for report (E. D. 5250–1894), I beg to state as follows:

The bill, it will have been observed was introduced into the Senate "by request." It relates exclusively to land and water rights at Great Falls, and, while it is in most respects an excellent bill, there are certain amendments that should be made in the interests of the United States and the District of Columbia, which is required to pay one half of whatever sums are to be expended for the purchase of these land and water rights.

The act of July 15, 1882, provided, among other things, for the acquisition by condemnation of the outstanding title, if any, to the land necessary for a dam across the Potomac River at Great Falls, including the land then occupied by the dam, the land required for the extension of the dam across Conns Island to and upon the Virginia shore and the land on which the gatehouse stands. The act provided also for the acquisition of certain unspecified water rights, and contained an appropriation of $45,000 to pay for all of these lands (except the land occupied by the gatehouse, which was not provided for), and for the water rights in the following

item:

"To pay for water rights and land necessary to extend dam at Great Falls to the Virginia shore, forty-five thousand dollars."

The act also contained the following item:

"For work and material to complete the dam at Great Falls to the level of one hundred and forty-eight feet above tide, and extend the same to the Virginia shore, one hundred and forty-five thousand one hundred and fifty-one dollars."

The proceedings to be had in condemnation were prescribed as follows: "When the map and survey are completed, the Attorney-General shall proceed to ascertain the owners or claimants of the premises embraced in the survey, and shall cause to be published, for the space of thirty days, in one or more of the daily newspapers published in the District of Columbia, a description of the entire tract or tracts of land embraced in the survey, with a notice that the same has been taken for the uses mentioned in this act, and notifying all claimants to any portion of said premises to file, within its period of publication, in the Department of Justice, a description of the tract or parcel claimed, and a statement of its value as estimated by the claimant. On application of the Attorney-General, the chief justice of the supreme court of the District of Columbia shall appoint three persons, not in the employ of the Government or related to the claimants, to act as appraisers, whose duty it shall be, upon receiving from the Attorney-General a description of any tract or parcel, the ownership of which is claimed separately, to fairly and justly value the same and report such valuation to the Attorney-General, who thereupon shall upon being satisfied as to the title of the same, cause to be offered to the owner or owners the amount fixed by the appraisers as the value thereof; and if the offer be accepted then upon the execution of a deed to the United States in form satisfactory to the Attorney-General, the Secretary of War shall pay the amount to such owner or owners from the appropriation made therefor in this act.

"In making the valuation the appraisers shall only consider the present value of the land without reference to its value for the uses for which it is taken under the provisions of this act.

"The appraisers shall each receive for their services five dollars for each day's actual service in making the said appraisements.

"Any person or corporation having any estate or interest in any of the lands embraced in said survey and map who shall for any reason not have been tendered payment therefor as above provided or who shall have declined to accept the amount tendered therefor, and any person who, by reason of the taking of said land, or by the construction of the works hereinafter directed to be constructed, shall be directly injured in any property right, may, at any time within one year from the

publication of notice by the Attorney-General as above provided, file a petition in the Court of Claims of the United States setting forth his right or title and the amount claimed by him as damage for the property taken or injury sustained; and the said court shall hear and adjudicate such claims in the same manner as other claims against the United States are now by law directed to be heard and adjudicated therein: Provided, That the court shall make such special rules in respect to such cases as shall secure their hearing and adjudication with the least possible delay."

The act also contained the following requirements:

"Judgment in favor of such claimants shall be paid as other judgments of said court are now directed to be paid; and any claimant to whom a tender shall have been made as herein before authorized and who shall have declined to accept the same, shall, unless he recover an amount greater than that so tendered, be taxed with the entire cost of the proceeding. All claims for value or damages on account of ownership of any interest in said premises, or on account of injury to a property right by the construction of said works, shall, unless a petition for the recovery thereof be filed within one year from the date of the first publication of notice by the Attorney-General as above directed, be forever barred: Provided, That owners or claimants laboring under any of the disabilities defined in the statute of limitations of the District of Columbia may file a petition at any time within one year from the removal of the disability.

"Upon the publication of the notice as above directed, the Secretary of War may take possession of the premises embraced in the survey and map, and proceed with the constructions herein authorized; and upon payment being made therefor, or without payment, upon the expiration of the times above limited without the filing of a petition, an absolute title to the premises shall vest in the United States."

The dam was extended and completed as specified in the years 188-'86 at a cost of about $140,000.

I was not placed in charge of the aqueduct till several years afterwards, but it can be stated that neither the land occupied by the dam, which was taken by the right of eminent domain, nor the water rights have been paid for.

The following claims for the land and water rights taken and the damages resulting from the taking were filed:

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, by Lewis C. Smith, president, a claim for $600,900.

The Great Falls Manufacturing Company, by Benjamin F. Butler, president.
The claims of this company were stated in the following terms:

"If the condemnation be for all of its water rights, the company estimates its damage at $1,000,900 and claims this amount.

"If the condemnation be for one-half of said rights, then the company claims $500,000.

"If the United States shall consent to let the company draw from the dam the surplus and unused water and shall provide the means for such drawing, a further reduction of the claim will be made."

I send herewith a plat explanatory of this report, in which I shall endeavor to draw attention to the great importance of a careful and cautious consideration of

the bill.

The plat shows Conns Island, the Maryland and Virginia channels separated by it, and the site of the dam, about 3,000 feet long, as it now exists, extending from shore to shore of the river.

The dam as it was at the date of the passage of the act extended out from the Maryland shore of the river above the falls and below the intake of the Washington Aqueduct, across the Maryland channel to the shore of Conns Island, and was 1,034 feet long. The necessity of the extension of the dam provided for in the act arose from the fact that by reason of its narrow width, shallow depth, and its obstructions, the Maryland channel was found to be inadequate to furnish to the aqueduct all the water required to meet the increasing demands upon it.

The land taken under the act mainly consisted of a narrow strip extending from the medium filum aquae of the Virginia channel to the western shore of Conns Island; thence across Conns Island to the eastern shore; thence to the medium filum aquae of the Maryland channel. The strip did not extend from the medium filum aquae of the Virginia channel to the Virginia shore for the reason (see the plat) that the United States was already, from 1854, a riparian owner at the Virginia end of the proposed extension of dam.

There was also included in the taking a small triangular portion of the bed of the Virginia channel between the medium filum aquae of the channel and the Virginia shore that was not covered by the riparian right of the United States as an owner on that shore, the lot on which the gate house stands, and also the land on the Maryland shore below this lot, extending to the shore, and covering in addition that part of

the river-bed site of the Maryland end of the old dam that was not already the property of the United States.

The area of the land taken is in all about 21 acres. Of this about 8 acres are on Conns Island; about 24 acres are on the Maryland shore; about 7 acres are on the bed of the Potomac, in the Virginia channel, and about 2 acres are on the bed of the Potomac, in the Maryland channel-in other words, about one-half of the entire area is covered by water.

Great Falls is a series of rapids in the river, extending about one-half or threefourths of a mile, in the course of which the river falls about 70 feet. It is about 16 miles above Washington.. The castern shore of the river is in Montgomery County, Md., and the jurisdiction of Maryland extends to the western shore, which is in Fairfax County, Va. The three principal owners of the lands adjacent to Great Falls are the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, and the United States. A fairly good estimate may be formed of the extent of their respective ownerships by an inspection of the plat and comparing the lengths of the mainland and island shores owned by them.

The only existing improvement of water rights at the falls is the aqueduct dam built by the United States.

Conns island is above the falls proper. It is about 3,500 feet long, about 1,000 feet wide at the widest place, and about 670 feet wide at the place near the foot of the island where it is crossed by the extension of the aqueduct dam. Its axis is about parallel with the thread of the current of the river, which at the falls runs about due south. The island is low and, where it is crossed by the extension of the dam, rocky. It is cut up by numerous channels, and the major part of the entire island is, during ordinary spring freshets, overflowed by the river.

The island is unimproved and uninhabited. The land is of but little value, if any. As a riparian owner, the Great Falls Manufacturing Company claims an interest in the water that flows both in the Maryland and Virginia channels, and it is this ownership that has been the basis of litigation and of claims against the United States for thirty years. The United States is a riparian owner opposite Conns Island both on the Virginia and Maryland shores, and if the assumption that the proportion of right of control of the water flowing in an unnavigable channel, held by each of two opposite riparian owners, does not depend on the relative lengths of their shore lines be correct, then it would appear that the United States has as much of the right of control of the water flowing on each side of Conns Island as have the owners of the island.

Land on the Maryland shore at Great Falls may be worth $200 an acre, but not more. I am told that land on the Virginia shore is worth from $20 to $30 an acre. I invite attention to the following important points in the act of July 15, 1882, and in Senate bill 1359.

(1) The amount authorized by Congress to be expended under the act is, for land and water rights at Great Falls, limited to $45,000.

The amount that, for the same object, may be expended under the provisions of the bill if enacted in its present form, and if the prices for the land and the water rights can be agreed on with the owners, is apparently unlimited. In the cases where there be no agreement the owners may institute suits in the Court of Claims, and the judgments of the court are apparently to be paid without limit by the Treasury Department.

(2) The act contains the following provision:

"In making the valuation the apppaisers shall only consider the present value of the land without reference to its value for the uses for which it is taken under the provisions of this act."

There is no such provision in the bill, but for the reason that the value of its water supply to Washington or any increase thereof is inestimable, there being no standard of values that can properly be applied to it, I think it important that a provision similar to the foregoing should be applied to the water rights as well as the land at Great Falls to be taken under the terms of the bill.

(3) The bill requires that the land and water rights at Great Falls are to be taken to the extent that may be deemed "necessary for the present and future supply of said District of Columbia, the water so taken to be used for any and all purposes." This is not contained in the act which the bill proposes to amend. The present supply to the city is about 45,000,000 gallons per diem. If provision is to be made for future supply, either in this bill or elsewhere, the amount should, I think, be stated at 200,000,000 gallons per diem. This, for the reason that from computations that I made after the last census of Washington (1890), I found the supply per diem per capita to be about 200 gallons, and I am of the opinion that if we are now to make arrangements for all time provision should be made for not less than 1,000,000 inhabitants.

(4) The bill provides (section 2) that in cases of agreement with the owners as to the prices of land and water rights taken, and where there be disagreements in cases ENG 94--203

of judgments rendered by the Court of Claims, the officials specified in the bill "shall have authority to enter into contracts with the owners of the land adjacent to the Great Falls, respectively, to secure to the latter the right to use, and facilities for using, so much of the water of the Potomac as may not be taken as aforesaid and used by the United States. And to this end they may authorize or permit such structures to be made as may be necessary and the value of any rights thus granted shall be received in part payment of the land and water rights taken as aforesaid." There is nothing referring to these contracts in the act, and it is difficult to understand the full meaning and intention of this provision. Whatever they may be, it seems to be clear that the bill contemplates that the United States shall secure to the owners of land at Great Falls the facilities for using, as well as the right to use, all of the flow of the Potomac that may not be taken and used by the United States. Let us suppose, for instance, that the United States, for itself and the District of Columbia, "takes" under the provisions of the bill, that is to say, acquires by an exercise of the right of eminent domain the right to take 200,000,000 gallons of water per diem. The quantity that may be "taken and used" is different. It is the quantity sent down and to be sent down to Washington through the aqueduct and future additions to the aqueduct. It will increase from year to year, and the bill contemplates such increase without additional compensation to the owners of the land and water rights, up to the limit of the quantity "taken."

I can best explain the point I wish to make, in respect of this part of the bill, by figures.

In a suit against the United States for damages in the sum of $500,000 by the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, as owners of Conns Island (in which judgment was rendered in 1879 against the United States for $15,692), it was agreed on by counsel, and accepted by the court, that the low-water flow of the Potomac should be stated at 1,065 cubic feet per second, say 700,000,000 gallons per diem. Excluding the times of freshets, the average flow may be said to be at least 6,500,000,000 gallons per diem. In times of very high water and freshets it is much greater, and in the flood of 1889 it was at the rate probably of not less than 305,650,000,000 gallons per diem.

*

Assuming, for illustration, that the quantity of water now "taken and used" by the United States is, say, 45,000,000 gallons per diem, and that the quantity to be "taken" under the provisions of the bill be 200,000,000 gallons per diem, the bill would require that the United States shall secure to the owners of the lands adjacent to the falls the facilities for using (and also the right to use) the following quantities of water per diem:

During low-water flow, say, 655,000,000 gallons now, decreasing to 500,000,000 gallons when the limit of the quantity "taken," say, 200,000,000 gallons per diem, shall be reached.

During average flow (excluding freshets), say, 6,455,000,000 gallons now, decreasing to 6,300,000,000 gallons when the above-mentioned limit shall be reached.

To these quantities should be added the constantly varying (decreasing) difference between the quantity of water "taken" and the quantity of water "used," the latter quantity, as said before, being at this time, say, 45,000,000 gallons per diem.

To "secure" to the owners of the land and water rights at Great Falls the facilities for using the remainder of the flow of the Potomac (whether this remainder be, as it would be, more than two-thirds of the low-water flow and about 97 per cent of the average flow), may mean either to provide these facilities and keep them in repair or to make the facilities certain.

The explanatory words "authorize and permit" in the next sentence seem to preclude the first of these meanings; but if it should be held to be the true one, the United States would either be obliged to make a cut or cuts in the aqueduct dam through which this remainder could be drawn, or to construct a dam below the aqueduct dam to collect, and from behind which could be transmitted to the manufactories and other works below the falls the water flowing over the aqueduct dam. The first of these would be inadmissible, for the reason that any cut or cuts in the

*Prof. Babb, American Society Civil Engineers, of the Geological Survey, in a paper on the Hydrography of the Potomac Basin (1891), gives the following averages of flow of the Potomac at Great Falls. His statements are in cubic feet, and I have reduced them to gallons:

1886.. 1887.

1888.

Average flow of the Potomac at Great Falls, in gallons per diem.

8, 107, 128, 000 | 1889.
7,698, 240, 000 1890.
9, 956, 020, 000 1891.

21, 327, 624, 000

13, 846, 464, 000

17, 449, 344, 000

In the claim of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company (see ante) are the following words: "If the United States

shall provide the means for such

drawing."

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