The Colorado Statesman

Vol. XVI.

Settle the Water Question.

Information Which May be of Interest to Taxpayers.

Denver now Entering upon an Era of Civic Progress. Let the Good Work proceed--Facts and Figures for taxpayers to Consider.

Let Business be above Politics. "Joker" in the Patterson-Rush Amendment.

Next Tuesday the voters will go to the polls to cast their ballots on some of the most important questions in the history of the city. Of these the Water Question presents the paramount issue.

If the taxpayers of the city vote wisely, it will be settled to stay settled for twenty years.

If they vote unwisely, the litigation and controversy that has been experienced during the past fifteen years will be prolonged for, no one knows how many years more.

If the question is not settled the city will enter upon an era of special elections, court trials and what not, that will keep it in a state of turmoil and retard its growth so it will be anything but a desirable place of abode for the citizen who seeks prosperity.

If it is settled, Denver's most important problem will be solved. The city will take on a new lease of life and grow as it should grow.

The Civic Center has been made a certainty, the boulevard system, connecting the various parks, is settled, and Denver is radiant with improvements under way.

Skyscrapers are going up on every hand, and the prospect of great things for the city is better than in any other city of the country.

All Denver needs is surcease from unnecessary agitation; if she is let alone, all will be well.

THE SANE SOLUTION OF THE WATER QUESTION LIES IN GRANTING TO THE DENVER UNION WATER COMPANY ITS PROPOSED FRANCHISE.

This is the decision of a majority of the citizens after a careful study of the question involved in the franchise proposal and in the various plans for acquiring municipal ownership of the water system.

The Denver Union Water Company, in its campaign in support of the franchise, has presented to the people facts and figures dealing with the cost of water plants in other sections of the country, and with the rates in other cities for water service. It has appealed to their intelligence and business judgment in an honorable, business-like manner.

It has proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the valuation of appraisers is conservative, and placed upon its plant by the board that a new plant cannot be built same capacity and same safeguards for less money and furnish the for a water supply for the future.

It has proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, that its rates are lower than the rates in a great majority of the cities of Denver's class; and this without taking into consideration the fact that the company has overcome greater difficulties in obtaining its water supply than any other city in the country, and furnishes from two to four times as much water as any city in its class.

The opponents of the company have contented themselves with a campaign of vilification and abuse.

They have asserted that the rates in Denver were higher than in any other city. They have offered, in support of this claim, the rates in effect in Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo, cities that are situated upon the Great Lakes with a water supply ample for the whole world at their doorsteps to be had for the cost of pumping.

These cities have no expense for conveyance of their water from great storage reservoirs, or for the twenty to fifty miles, as is the case in Denver.

Neither do they furnish filtered water. Therefore, have no expense for the construction or operation of the purification plants that have made Denver's water supply equal, if not superior, to that of any city in the world.

These cities should furnish water at a lower cost to consumers than Denver.

These opponents have declared that a better plant than the present one can be built for less than $8,000,000.

Have you seen any of them present any estimate of the cost of a single foot of pipe for that plant, or of a fire hydrant, or of a reservoir?

Have you seen a single detailed plan for the construction of any part of the water system?

Have you seen a single, solitary statement as to where they would obtain their water supply: where they would locate their reservoirs, or their filtration plant?

Would you, if you were building a house, pay any attention to any estimate of cost that might be placed upon it by a person who had no plans, had no knowledge of the cost of materials, or of what sort of a house you wanted to build?

No one, who is blessed with good common sense, would.

In contrast with this campaign of generalities the Water Company has analyzed the contents of every water plant, of any importance, in the United States.

It has shown that the actual equipment of every plant that has been mentioned as costing less than the valuation upon its plant has been far more expensive to the people of the cities, where municipal ownership is in vogue.

The analyses of these plants have not been controverted by its opponents. They were presented so fully and so clearly that they could readily be answered if they were not founded on facts.

No important claim by the opponents of the Water Company has been unanswered. Wild and unimportant ones have been ignored because it is folly to answer statements that, on their face, are foolish.

THERE CAN BE NO QUESTION THAT THE CLAIM OF A $7,000,000 WATER PLANT OR A CITY OBTAINING ITS SUPPLY UNDER THE DIFFICULTIES PRESENTED IN DENVER, IS THE WILDEST FOLLY.

Los Angeles is spending about $40,000,000 merely to increase an inadequate supply.

San Francisco is preparing to spend $46,500,000 to build a new plant. This is only the preliminary estimate.

New York City is spending $160,000,000 to increase an inadequate supply.

Philadelphia has spent more than $30,000,000 for a filtration plant alone that has only two and one-half times the capacity of the plant of the Denver Union Water Company, which the appraisers valued at $863,136.

The Massachusetts Metropolitan Water Board spent $40,000,000 for a gravity supply for Boston and neighboring cities. It supplies about twice as much water as is used in Denver. It brings the water thirty-five miles--fifteen miles less than the distance to Lake Cheesman. The cost is exclusive of distribution or filtration system.

New Orleans has spent, to date, $8,480,000 for a new water plant; it is not yet complete. On the basis of the valuations fixed by the appraisers upon the Denver plant a system more adequate than that in New Orleans could be built for $6,438,538.

The people of New Orleans, according to the Denver valuation, paid $2,000,000 too much under municipal ownership.

That may be economy, but it appears rather left-handed.

The plant obtains its water supply within the city: it has no storage system. Its mains are so small that they could not carry half the water required by Denver.

On this showing it is a certainty that a new plant cannot be built in Denver for less than the appraised valuation.

If it could be built for that price, that would not begin to cover the real cost to the people of the city.

Building a new plant would necessitate tearing up at least 500 miles of streets.

The work would require at least five years.

Every class of business would suffer untold damage.

It would cost at least another $1,000,000 to connect the service pipes of consumers to the mains of the new plant.

This is an item that the opponents of the Water Company have not mentioned. To make the connections a trench would have to be dug the full width of the street in front of every house.

Municipal ownership would mean an immediate increase in water rates, or taxes, that would raise your present charge for water at least 50 per cent.

Interest on $15,000,000 in bonds, at four and one-half per cent., amounts to $675,000 a year: sinking fund, to redeem bonds in fifty years, $300,000 a year: operation and maintenance, at least $350,000 a year: ordinary extensions of plant, at least $150,000 a year: general expenses, litigation, accidents, etc., at least $100,000 a year, making a total of $1,575,000 as the lowest possible expense of a city-owned plant, without any allowance for waste or inefficient service.

That is $508,000 more than the present revenue of the Water Company.

It means that the water consumers must make up that fifty per cent. by higher rates or increased taxes.

The proposed franchise of the Denver Union Water Company offers the rates now in effect. They cannot be higher during the twenty years, but may be lower.

Twenty-six cities in the United States of 100,000 to 300,000 population supply water under schedule rates. Denver's rates are lower than twenty of the twenty-six and lower than the average of all.

Average charge for a six-room house, bath, closet and irrigation for one lot in the twenty-six cities is $20.36 a year.

The charge in Denver, for the same service, is $18.30 a year.

The average, per capita, consumption of water in the twenty-six cities is only 97.8 gallons daily.

The average, per capita, consumption in Denver is 220 gallons daily.

No city is supplied with purer water than Denver; every drop furnished is scientifically filtered.

Only six municipal plants in the twenty-six cities of Denver's class supply filtered water.

Denver had the first filtration plant west of the Mississippi river.

The plant has been kept abreast of the development in water purification. Nothing has been left undone to protect the health of the people of Denver.

The new franchise requires the company to replace, within one year, all small pipe now owned by the City of Denver with mains, at least six inches in diameter.

It requires an abundant supply of water for fire and domestic purposes, under a minimum pressure at the high points of the city, of forty-five pounds, and a correspondingly higher pressure at lower points.

In Denver, as in every other city, water for irrigation of lawns and gardens is part of the domestic service. It is supplied through the same mains and service pipes as water for any other use and subject to the same conditions.

THE OLD FRANCHISE REQUIRED A SUPPLY OF WATER FOR FIRE PURPOSES. WATER HAS BEEN FURNISHED FOR DOMESTIC AND IRRIGATION USES UNDER THAT FRANCHISE FOR TWENTY YEARS.

THE COMPANY IS IN BUSINESS TO SELL WATER, NOT TO KEEP IT.

The $100,000 a year in free water, for parks, boulevards, street sprinkling and other civic improvements, is one of the most liberal propositions as compensation for a franchise that has ever been given any city.

It represents about 10 per cent. of the present gross income of the company.

It is within $10,000 of the combined compensation paid by the Tramway and Gas companies. The combined income of these companies is nearly five and one-half times the income of the Water Company.

In addition to this the company pays about $100,000 in taxes in the City and County of Denver.

Mr. D. H. Moffat has stated that the revenue under the proposed franchise will not allow the company to pay dividends in less than five years, and not then unless the city grows rapidly.

Does anybody believe that inexperienced politicians, conducting a water plant under municipal ownership, which is political ownership, can do so as economically as the best business men in the city?

The chances are a hundred to one that the politicians would spend two dollars where the experienced men, now in charge of the water system, spend one.

Also, does anyone believe that the water system will be conducted with less political favor than other branches of municipal government?

Will not the political friends of the men in charge receive water free, just as favored politicians receive other things free?

Investigations now in progress to uncover graft in the water department in Chicago and Kansas City show how municipal water departments are conducted. In Chicago it has already been shown that the city pays just twice as much for water department supplies as private concerns pay.

In Kansas City it has already been shown that the water department pays twice as much for meters, and other supplies, as private parties pay, and scores of politicians are kept on the payrolls without doing any work.

Would Denver be any better off?

Former Senator Patterson and "Clean-Up" John A. Rush, otherwise Mushrush, are the head and front of the municipal ownership movement.

We have published Rush's letter to a Chicago banker setting forth a plan to "clean up" from $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 on a fake tramway franchise four years ago.

Senator Patterson was behind this deal with the support of his papers.

What can be expected from a political machine fostered and controlled by them? If they will graft themselves, will not their machine do likewise?

The charter amendment proposed by them repeals the legislative power of the City Council and the veto power of the mayor, and authorizes their water commission to provide and force the council and mayor to agree to a bond issue for the construction of a water plant in any sum it may deem advisable.

These provisions of the Patterson-Rush charter amendment are as follows:

"The council shall pass such ordinances as said commission shall deem necessary respecting the issuance of said bonds or to the full exercise of all the powers given it, IN THE FORM RECOMMENDED BY THE COMMISSION AND WITHOUT AMENDMENT AND THE MAYOR SHALL SIGN THE SAME.

THE COMMISSION MAY SUBMIT AN ALTERNATIVE BOND PROPOSITION AT THE SAID SPECIAL ELECTION FOR THE ISSUANCE OF BONDS IN SUCH SUM AS IT MAY DEEM ADVISABLE FOR THE ACQUISITION OR CONSTRUCTION OF A WATER PLANT, OR ANY PART THEREOF, BY ANY OF THE WAYS WITHIN ITS POWER HEREIN MENTIONED."

These jokers, in the Patterson-Rush water league amendment give the commission the right to put its hand into the public purse as often and as deep as it desires.

Is this not a dangerous power to give three men?

If they spend fifteen, twenty or twenty-five million dollars experimenting with a water plant, who will pay the freight?

THE POLITICIANS WON'T.

THE TAXPAYER WILL.

THE ONLY WAY IN WHICH TO AVOID PROLONGED LITIGATION AND CONTROVERSY, TOGETHER WITH GRAFT, INCOMPETENT MANAGEMENT AND POLITICAL ABUSE OF THE WATER SYSTEM, IS THROUGH EXTENDING THE FRANCHISE OF THE DENVER UNION WATER COMPANY.

VOTE "YES" FOR THE FRANCHISE AND YOU WILL MAKE NO MISTAKE.