| OCR Text |
Show all fundamental financial and statistical data which can be compiled in one office and made available to all waterworks managements and to other interested agencies and persons. If all waterworks managements were required to report their finances and statistics to their respective State boards of health, on standard forms under uniform classification of accounts and statistical information, the State boards of health could then transmit this information to the United States Public Health Service for compila- tion and publication. This would be in har- mony with the cooperative arrangement already existing in the relationship between the Public Health Service and the State boards of health. Metropolitan Water Districts Fundamentally the typical waterworks serves only one community, but a number of metropoli- tan water districts have been established to pro- vide more adequate and economic water service either at wholesale or at retail to a number of neighboring cities and adjacent areas. These metropolitan communities are growing faster than the national population and areas outside the central city are growing faster than the central city. The Massachusetts Metropolitan Water Dis- trict, for example, was created by the State legis- lature in 1895 to construct and operate works to supply Boston and cities and towns within a specified distance from the State House (Boston). The district furnishes water at wholesale to 23 member cities and towns with a 1950 estimated population of 1.67 million. Water sold in 1949 averaged 190.92 million gallons a day or 113.7 gallons a day per capita. The investment ap- proximated 100 million dollars. The district is authorized to control water waste and to approve minimum rates to be charged for water by any customer town, and to prevent diversion of water revenues to other public purposes until specified costs have been met. The Massachusetts Metropolitan Water Dis- trict-its works and its operations-represents a conspicuously successful method of meeting the water-supply needs of a densely populated metro- politan area overriding the municipal boundaries, and establishing authority to develop and sell water at wholesale. The North Jersey District Water Supply Commission has approached the problem of re- gional water supply in a different manner, owing to the essential difference in State constitutional provisions of New Jersey compared to those of Massachusetts. While Massachusetts has re- served the right to legislate upon items of local concern, New Jersey has given extensive home- rule powers to incorporated communities. The AVERAGE ANNUAL PRECIPITATION Source: U. S. Weather Bureau FIGURE 13 181 |
