each public utility named in such petition or petitions, separate from the proposition there for formulated by the Board of Supervisors. All propositions formulated under the provision of this Section shall be completed within six months after the filing of such petition or petitions. Section 1 of Article XII, referred to in this section, reads as follows: Whenever the Board of Supervisors by ordinance, as hereinafter provided, shall determine that the public interest or necessity demands the acquisition, construction or completion of any public utility or utilities by the City and County, or whenever the electors shall petition the Board of Supervisors, as provided in Section 3 of this Article, for the acquisition of any public utility or utilities, the Board of Supervisors must procure from the Board of Public Works, through the City Engineer, plans and estimates of the cost of original construction and completion by the City and County, of such public utility or utilities. In securing estimates of the cost of original construction and completion of water works, by the City and County, the Board of Supervisors must procure, as hereinabove specified, and place on file plans and estimates of the cost of obtaining, from such sources as the Board of Supervisors may designate as available, a sufficient supply of good, pure water for the City and County. That a source of water supply, together with the necessary waterrights, reservoirs, works and distributing system for the needs of a municipality and its inhabitants, is a public utility is unquestionable. In the language of the decisions it is "affected with a public use," that is, it is essential to the needs of the community. Aside from that general consideration there is this express declaration of the Constitution of the State of California (Article XIV, Section I): The use of water now appropriated or that may hereafter be appropriated for sale, rental or distribution is hereby declared to be a public use and subject to the regulation and control of the State. Further, in the very article of the charter under consideration, namely Article XII, it is obvious that the framers of the charter intended to designate municipal waterworks as a public utility, for in Section 1, after providing for the general method of procuring estimates of the cost of construction and completion of any public utility a special method is prescribed with respect to securing such estimates for waterworks. It is equally obvious that a given source of water supply not yet developed or in operation intended for the purpose of accommodating the needs of a municipality and its inhabitants is a public utility. Were there any doubt of the point, Section 2 of Article XII of the charter would set that doubt at rest. It reads thus: Before submitting propositions to the electors for the acquisition by original construction or condemnation of public utilities, the Board of Supervisors must solicit and consider offers for the sale to the City and County of existing utilities, in order that the electors may have the benefit of acquiring the same at the lowest possible cost thereof. The word "existing" is clearly used in contradistinction to an available source of water supply not yet developed or in operation. Such a water supply, with the necessary works and rights for its operation to meet the needs of a municipality and its inhabitants, is a public utility. There remains yet to be disposed of the question whether the electors, by the method prescribed in Section 3 of Article XII of the charter, can demand the submission by the Board of Supervisors. to the people of a proposition for the acquirement by the municipality of one specific designated source of water supply, or whether their power is limited to demanding the submission of alternative propositions for the acquisition of more than one water supply. The charter provisions read: Whenever a petition . . . signed by electors of the City and County equal in number to fifteen per centum of all the votes cast in the City and County at the last preceding general election, shall be presented to the Board of Supervisors, setting forth that the signers of such petition or petitions favor the acquisition of the public utility or utilities therein named, it shall be the duty. This alternative method of statement gives the electors the choice of demanding the submission of only one utility or several utilities. Moreover it is clear that under Section 1 of Article XII of the charter the board of supervisors have themselves the right, after determining that public needs or necessity demand the acquisition, construction or completion of any public utility or utilities, to submit to the people the question of the acquisition of any one given utility. The charter framers intended to give the electors the same right that is given to the board of supervisors, and to substitute their judgment as to whether or not public necessity or needs demand the acquisition of any given utility for that of the board of supervisors. The scheme is an entirety; no greater power is given the supervisors than the electors of the city and county themselves possess. An incompetent or corrupt board of supervisors might by reason of its incompetence or corruption not be sufficiently concerned for the public needs to declare the necessity for the acquisition of any given utility. To avoid such a condition the people retain in their hands the right to intervene and demand the submission to themselves of the question whether any given utility or utilities should be acquired by the municipality. Your Committee therefore reports: 1. That an available source of water supply to meet the needs of a municipality and its inhabitants, whether such a source of water supply be developed and in operation or not, is a public utility within. the meaning of the charter. 2. That the electors have the right under the charter by petition properly signed in the manner prescribed by the charter, to have submitted to the people for their determination by vote the question whether any single designated source of water supply should be acquired by the municipality. Respectfully submitted, H. U. BRANDENSTEIN, THE PRESIDING OFFICER.-We have with us to-night representatives of the Bay Cities Water Company. Some of our guests here may or may not understand that this is a forum in which there is supposed to be a square deal for every one, and that all questions which come before the Club are considered squarely upon their merits, without passion and without prejudice, and that everybody is to have his say. After the last meeting I wrote to the Spring Valley people, who were not represented here, notifying them that they had been lambasted from top to bottom, and that it was stated that their water supply was insufficient for the requirements, that it was needed for places outside of this city, and that litigation might interfere with the diversion of a great part of their Alameda supply to this city, and finally that the stuff was not potable; and invited them to come here and reply to all those matters, assuring them that they should have the same fair deal that the rest had, the end of the Club being to put before the people of the city all the essential facts bearing upon the water supply of this city. In response to that I have a communication from Mr. Schussler, which will be read. I do not suppose that we shall get through with this discussion this evening. We are endeavoring to devote ample time to it and to give every one an opportunity to be heard, and I should like an expression of sentiment as to whether we shall try to rush this through to-night or whether we shall go home in decent season and continue the discussion at the next meeting. What is the judgment of the Club about that? The Governors desire to meet the wishes of the Club, and they can only meet the wishes of the Club by asking what they are. MR. HUTCHINSON.-I move that we devote another meeting to this subject. The motion was carried. THE PRESIDING OFFICER.-That will be the order, then, and we shall now hear from Mr. Edwin Duryea, Jr., Chief Engineer of the Bay Cities Water Company. REMARKS BY MR. EDWIN DURYEA, JR. I have been invited by the Club to present the facts about the Bay Cities Water Company's project of a water supply for San Francisco and shall therefore say but little on other phases of the subject. The need of San Francisco for a larger and better supply than it now has, and for municipal ownership of its supply, seems so self-evident as to be hardly worth discussion. It seems equally evident that the new supply should be from the Sierras, and the only debatable question is which one of the several Sierra supplies will best meet the needs of San Francisco. Of the various Sierra supplies, but two are prominently mentioned at present as water supplies for San Francisco. These two are the Tuolumne supply, advocated by Mr. James D. Phelan, former mayor of San Francisco; and the American-Cosumnes supply, owned by the Bay Cities Water Company. THE TUOLUMNE SUPPLY But brief comments will be made on the Tuolumne supply, (1) to show the improbability of San Francisco's being able to acquire it; and (2) to correct two of the misstatements made by Mr. Phelan in regard to it, both in his present discussion and previously in the newspapers. As to its acquirement, it should not be forgotten that no matter what the merit of the Tuolumne as a source of water supply for San Francisco (and I believe it to have much merit), the United States Government has several times refused San Francisco permission. to use it for that purpose. Such a permission would be not only contrary to the established policy of the Government, but in direct. disregard of the protests of agriculturists in the valley below, dependent on irrigation. The Government doubtless realizes that its adverse decision entails no more serious consequence to San Francisco than the necessity of adopting some other of the several Sierra supplies, as good as the Tuolumne but perhaps a little more costly. Should any reservoir privileges be granted, the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation districts, served by water from the Tuolumne, would be the interests most likely to receive them. Large sums have been spent in perfecting these irrigation systems, which can not, as can San Francisco, use other streams than the Tuolumne. The districts have already, I believe, applied to the National Government for reservoir privileges on the Tuolumne. To all except ardent partisans of the Tuolumne supply its acquirement by San Francisco seems impracticable and still as far distant as when the effort to acquire it was begun, about six years ago. The misstatements of Mr. Phelan which will be corrected are as follows: First, he states that the area contributing to the Tuolumne supply contains "more than 1500 square miles," though the fact is that the combined catchment area of the Lake Eleanor and Hetch Hetchy reservoirs contains but 536 square miles. (See report of C. E. Grunsky, City Engineer, Municipal Reports, San Francisco, 1902-1903, pp. 414 and 416.) The misstatement probably arose from confusing the area above the Government gaging station at La Grange, 1501 square miles, with the area above the point where the San Francisco supply would leave the river, many miles further upstream. The correction of this misstatement shows the true water-producing area of the "Tuolumne supply" to be only 36 per cent of that claimed by Mr. Phelan. The other misstatement relates to the run-off or stream-flow of the Tuolumne. Mr. Phelan states that the Tuolumne catchment area has a “mean annual rainfall of from 20 to 50 inches” and a “mean annual run-off of 24 inches." Mr. Grunsky states (see his report, pp. 420 and 423, Municipal Reports, San Francisco, 1902-1903) that both the Lake Eleanor and the Hetch Hetchy catchment areas have average mean annual rainfalls of about 36 inches, with a mean annual run-off of about 14 inches. He also says "the minimum [rainfall] may be as low as 18 inches per annum" and "for a season of minimum precipitation, when the fall of rain and snow throughout the watershed may be equivalent to only 18 inches of rain, it is estimated that the run-off would be about 5.4 inches." The date of Mr. Grunsky's report was July, 1902. Later studies by him, embodied in an official drawing dated February, 1904, show that his final conclusion is that with Sierra conditions an 18-inch rainfall can not be safely depended upon to yield more than 3.4 inches of run-off. I may add that I have discussed this drawing (entitled Revised Run-off Curves) with him verbally, and was told that it embodied his latest and most reliable data of run-off, and should be used in preference to any of his earlier conclusions. Instead, therefore, of an average annual run-off of 24 inches from the Tuolumne area, as claimed by Mr. Phelan, Mr. Grunsky claims only 14 inches, or only 58 per cent as much. The average run-off has but little bearing on water supply, however, as for that purpose only the worst conditions, or the minimum run-off, can be considered. According to Mr. Grunsky's conclusions the value of the Tuolumne for water supply is represented by 5.4 inches run-off (in his report of 1902), or more accurately by 3.4 inches (in his revised run-off curve of 1904). These values are respectively 23 per cent and 14 per cent of the 24 inches average run-off mentioned by Mr. Phelan. If the above error in run-off is combined with the error in area, the product of the 14 per cent by the 36 per cent gives about 5 per cent as the relation between the actual water-producing value of the |