Francisco. All the pipe lines that come from the Sierra Nevada or any other source into this city have to come through the peninsula, and whoever owns the works will be very glad to sell water to the San Mateo towns.

If San Francisco owns its own water supply, why, it would be perfectly natural that they would also look out for the county adjoining it. If Oakland owns its own water supply, they would no doubt take care of all the suburban places around it. If the two were to come together, that is somewhat more complicated.

I made an investigation at the request of some of the bondholders of the People's Water company of the situation in Oakland, and I suggested what works could be built on the property owned by the company. I ended my report by telling them that after developing certain sources in the immediate neighborhood in that county they could then become a customer of the party that would then own the Alameda creek system, whether it was the Spring Valley or the city of San Francisco. I assumed at the time that possibly the city would buy these properties. Whether they buy them or not, the city of Oakland can, by extending a comparatively short conduit into the Alameda. system, get an ample supply for many years to come, which would help them over the coming two or three decades. They could then, if the sources around here have been fully developed and utilized, draw water from the Sierra or the San Joaquin or the Sacramento rivers.

Oakland has some very good reservoir sites, where the water could be stored by gravitation from the Calaveras dam or by pumping from the lower portion of the Alameda creek system.

I think I have not talked to the subject as I should have done, but as long as you started me, I have continued. It seems my chronic condition. I have been a citizen here for fifty-two years, and a taxpayer for over fifty years, and I am intensely bound up in this community, not only in San Francisco but around the bay. You all have to work together, and if San Francisco ever acquires, with its superior wealth, and controls all the water systems, they must be sure to treat the water users around the bay generously, and I think you all will reap the benefit. (Applause.)

Remarks by George A. Merrill

MR. MERRILL: I have no doubt that it is possible to catch and store in San Mateo county a good deal more water than the Spring Valley is now storing there, but if the Spring Valley Water Company has any idea of increasing its supply in that manner, we of San Mateo county hope they will make their plans to serve us first, bringing only the surplus to San Francisco.

Secondly, not only is it important that you should have enough water in San Francisco, but it is also important that you should have it at the proper price. Can the Spring Valley Water Company increase its supply by going to remote parts of San Mateo county, and at the same time lower its rates? Redwood City today owns its own distributing system. We buy the water from a pumping company; we pay them 122 cents a thousand gallons, pumped into our mains at ninety pounds pressure. We sell it to the people of Redwood City. We sell it cheap enough so that we get all of the water for sprinkling our streets, for watering our parks, for flushing our sewers-we get all of that for nothing; we charge against the water system all the cost of maintaining it, and we make enough out of it to pay for all of our extensions. We charge the people ten per cent less than the Supervisors in San Francisco fixed for the rates of San Francisco. The Spring Valley Water Company is collecting fifteen per cent more than the Supervisors fixed. In other words, we are doing what I have told you we are doing, and we are selling the water for twenty-five per cent less than you are charged here in San Francisco. Redwood City is well supplied, but many other parts of the county are not. Any water that may be developed in San Mateo county can be sold there at a reasonable price and a good profit, and equally good results ought to be exacted in anticipation of San Francisco's future supply, wherever it is to come from.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Chandler, I think you were next to Mr. Schussler. Can you continue this discussion, Mr. Chandler, bearing in mind the real subject, and that is this subject of the formation of a district, and the method of it?

Remarks by A. E. Chandler

MR. CHANDLER: All I wish to say, Mr. President and gentlemen, is to express congratulations to the committee for the way in which it has prepared and rendered its report. I shall look forward with pleasure to reading the report.

All of us know the difficulty we have had, especially as to one municipality, in regard to the movement for the Greater San Francisco, and that probably will be the one big obstacle in the way of the formation of this district.

As has been indicated by the gentlemen reporting for the committee and by the gentlemen speaking from the floor, there is no question in regard to the community interest in the supply. We who are especially interested in irrigation have dealt with this problem in connection with irrigation in a number of instances, principally in connection with

the great works of the United States Reclamation system. The Service has gone into communities which have been demanding an extension of irrigated area, just as our municipalities demand an extension of domestic and municipal supply, and all kinds of irrigation enterprises have been worked into a single project. I think all we need do is that, which is suggested by the resolution, each one of us and all of us should get behind this movement and push it as we can.

THE PRESIDENT: Will some one else continue the discussion? Mr. Rainey, will you give us the views of San Francisco on this subject?

MR. RAINEY: I see Mr. O'Shaughnessy here, who is our highest and best water authority, and I would rather hear from the Chief than say anything myself.

THE PRESIDENT: May we hear from Mr. O'Shaughnessy?

Remarks by M. M. O'Shaughnessy

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I did not understand all those combinations that Mr. Galloway made. I know he had San Francisco and Oakland united in many of them. I would like to ask him if there is a combination also for San Francisco and the neighboring peninsular cities.

MR. GALLOWAY: Yes, the first group.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Gentlemen, this is the most serious subject that has ever been brought up for discussion before this body. I do not believe that the people of the transbay cities realize the seriousness of their situation in regard to water supply. According to the statistics, Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda use sixteen million gallons per day, or about fifty gallons per head, which is quite inadequate for an American system. The population growth has been very great in that region in the past six or seven years, and unless immediate steps are taken to increase that supply by much quicker means than Mr. Schussler suggested, one of which would be by immediately enlarging this Lake Chabot Dam and by making other dams as well as developing all other available local sources, I think a very serious crisis on the occurrence of two dry years will be reached by the transbay cities.

I was rather surprised this month in looking over the records of the consumption of water in San Francisco. Last year we had a floating population of very nearly 50,000 people in San Francisco daily above the normal, due to the Exposition. During the month of May, and the month of April of this year, the consumption per day has been very nearly three million gallons per day greater than last year in San Francisco, which means an increase of about 37,000 in the population, basing the consumption on eighty-five gallons per capita.

THE PRESIDENT: Three million this year?

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Three million gallons a day more for May, 1916, than for 1915, the year of the Exposition, which shows a very pronounced growth. Fortunately, due to the construction of the Calaveras dam, in which there is two or three billion gallons of water impounded, and in which there will be considerably more a year from now, San Francisco seems secure, but, of course, speaking as a citizen, we sympathize very much with the misfortune of the cities across the bay, and would be very glad to coöperate with them in any well-considered measure for their mutual relief.

I do not know whether any one else here has had the experience I have had of four years in connection with the practical formulation of a municipal water district. I was elected one of the five directors at large of the Marin Water district. There were seven more selected, one from each municipality inside of the district, and one from the county, which made it a very cumbersome and topheavy body of thirteen men. I think the suggestion of the committee limiting the commission to three is a very desirable one. I feel that great mistake was made in the first plan by the lawyers in the framing of this Municipal Water act. We have had nothing but litigation since the district was started four years ago. The act was too long, the wording was ambiguous. Legislation of this character should be simpler and plainer. I think a great deal of consideration should be given to the legal phase of this subject.

San Francisco will welcome the coöperation of the bay cities. San Francisco is serene and indifferent and resolute so far as its policies are concerned. Its policies are definite and decided, to go ahead and develop its water supply. We are going to acquire the local system, and also develop the mountain sources and will gladly welcome the assistance of the adjacent communities in the development of that portion of the supply. We will welcome them to coöperate with us and permit them to participate in the project on the same financial obligations that San Francisco has to incur.

I question very much some of the conclusions of Mr. Schussler with regard to the calamity which follows from politicians handling water supplies. Politicians, so-called, handle about 95 per cent of the water supplies of the cities of the United States, and the price of water in those cities so served is very much less than the price of water in either San Francisco or Oakland or Denver, handled and owned by private corporations. Private ownership in those cities has engendered constant conflict, and useless wasteful litigation.

The question of distance for a water supply should not look appalling. Los Angeles has gone 240 miles away to get a water supply, and surely if Los Angeles can go 240 miles, we can afford to go 160 miles. We have surely as much brains and intelligence in this part of the state as the city of Los Angeles. I think our municipal railways, our Civic Center and other civic institutions are a demonstration of our superior ability here to accomplish any project when we make up our minds to start it and stick to it.

I think that this effort is a very wise move. I think the forty-five pages of that bill, after we see the matter in print, will need very careful scrutiny, and will be a basis from which a workable measure can be formulated, and I do trust that experienced minds will lend aid to making it a more practicable measure than the recent Municipal Water District act.

THE PRESIDENT: I was just observing, Mr. Powers, in looking over this bill that the city of Carmel was left out. If you desire to offer any amendment, we will hear it now, Mr. Powers.

Remarks by Frank H. Powers

MR. POWERS: I do not intend to drag Carmel into this, because we do not quarrel with our neighbors. I am very much interested in this bill, and in the report of the committee. I think they are very much to be congratulated because of the skill with which they have eliminated many questions, the differences of opinion about which would have prevented a possible success. I think it is much more important that some measure be inaugurated with the general purpose of coöperation, making the scheme just as simple as it possibly can be, than to attempt to solve it all at once. To get a nucleus by which something can be done is very important. In the past the reason for the absence of coöperation has been the jealousy of Oakland. It is just exactly like a country belle with a perfectly beautiful complexion but little patrimony hesitating about marrying a great big farmer's boy, who has a mighty fine income. After hesitating while trying experimental flirtations with divers irresponsible and well-manicured insincere beaux she finally realizes that good bread and butter is a very desirable certainty. Oakland and Berkeley are only commencing to realize that they have only fifty gallons per capita of water a day, and that they cannot have more population without more water, and have no hope for more water unless they come in and help San Francisco get a wholesale supply available for all. Their ideas are going to change, and you are now coming forward with a project that is sufficiently simple to make it possible to get started into making this change result in permanent good for the entire