Dry Gotham (Cont'd)

"A river is more than an amenity; it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it."

So declared Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes last week in rendering a Supreme Court decision which meant life for New York City and death for six little hamlets in Delaware County, N. Y. By the court's order New York was allowed to divert 440,000,000 gal. per day from certain tributaries of the Delaware River to add to the city's ever-growing water supply (TIME, April 27). By the same decree Arena (pop. 216), Dunraven (pop. 104), Union Grove (pop. 204), Shavertown (pop. 219), Pepacton (pop. 27) and pos-sibly Downsville (pop. 532) will be blotted out of existence by a great new reservoir which will rise over them when the East Branch of the Delaware* is dammed.

But it was not these doomed villages that tried to get the Supreme Court to stay the hand of New York. It was the State of New Jersey, fighting to save its stake in the now of the Delaware. Seeking an injunction against New York, its attorneys had pleaded for a strict application of the common law doctrine of riparian rights forbidding diversion from one watershed to another. But the Supreme Court, overruling this argument, decreed, in effect, that domestic municipal supply is the highest and most important use to which interstate water can be put.

The Supreme Court victory of New York over New Jersey was a personal triumph for Thomas Penney Jr., smart young Buffalo lawyer, Wartime aviator and Yaleman (1918), who as a special assistant Attorney General represented New York State. He and his arguments had beaten no less famed an advocate than Representative James Montgomery Beck, counsel for New Jersey. Another victor was Arthur Hilly, corporation counsel for New York City, who appeared before the Supreme Court to plead for enlarged municipal water rights.

New York City did not get its new water supply unconditionally. Before it may build dams for diversion it must erect plants at Port Jervis to purify sewage and eliminate industrial waste pouring into the Delaware. Also if the river drops below a specified level at Trenton, New York must release a part of its impounded supply. On the East Branch will be constructed an $18,700,000 dam from which a tunnel big enough to drive an automobile in will be blasted 22 mi. through solid mountain rock to link with the present Catskill system. Another $7,200,000 reservoir will be made on the Neversink River. Total cost of dams, reservoirs and aqueducts for the new project: $210,000,000. Twelve years will elapse before its completion.

New Jersey officials refused to concede defeat. New Jersey, said they, gets "a deal so much better than anything formerly proposed that it is the cause of genuine rejoicing."

* Construction of the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskills inundated five villages. Average price paid for the land condemned: $485 per acre

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