As might be expected in the largest manufacturing State in the Union, there is in New York a very general appreciation of the importance of water storage for the development of power for industrial use; therefore, of the different phases of the water-storage question now pressed upon public notice, that one probably commands the most attention at the present time.
1—Power Development. The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks is chiefly concerned with this question as it bears on the Adirondacks; but owing to the fact that waters originating in part in the Adirondacks flow in many cases to great distances beyond that region, it is impossible to treat the subject as one of purely localized interest. The question naturally arises, What proportion of importance is there between the question of water storage in the Adirondacks and water storage in the State at large? On the face of things, the proportion seems small. The water-sheds of the whole State aggregate 30,476,800 acres, while the State lands within the Adirondack Preserve with which we are chiefly concerned comprise only 1,530,559 acres, or less than 5 percent. A comparison of possible water-power developments shows a similar disproportion. The Fourth Annual Report of the State Water Supply Commission says that "With the complete utilization of all storage possibilities an eventual development amounting to not less than 1,500,000 horsepower, exclusive of Niagara and Saint Lawrence rivers, is possible for the entire State." If, to this estimate be added the existing 200,000 horsepower development at Niagara Falls, 100,000 horsepower as the resource of the lower Niagara, and 400,000 horsepower for the Saint Lawrence, an eventual total of 2,200,000 horsepower for the whole State does not seem to be beyond the range of possibility. From figures derived from the various sources it would appear that about 71/2 percent of this development would require encroachment upon State land in the Adirondack Park, which is now forbidden by the Constitution. When it is considered that attention has been concentrated for several years on the resources of the principal Adirondack streams, while the possibilities of the rivers outside of the Adirondacks have not yet been completely explored, there is much reason to believe that were the census of the hydraulic resources of the State complete it would be found that the ratio of the power possibilities of State Forest lands to the power possibilities of the whole State is about the same as the ratio of the respective water-sheds, or about 5 percent. There are two or three reasons, however, why the question of water storage in the Adirondacks assumes an importance quite out of proportion to this ratio. One is the acknowledged fact that the majority leader of the larger house of the State Legislature is personally interested in water-power developed from Adirondack waters, and desires to have the Constitution amended so that State lands may be flooded for the benefit of his own as well as other private corporations. This powerful member of the Legislature has the sympathetic support of the Speaker of the Assembly, who stands sponsor for a power corporation on Genesee river, on the banks of which the Speaker lives. With the water-power interests thus strongly represented in the Legislature, and with some of them casting covetous eyes on State land from which they are restrained only by the Constitution, it is not surprising, perhaps, that in the public agitation of the water-storage question such statements should be made as that "the most important single obstacle to the carrying out by the State of this conservation policy" is "the necessity of amending the Constitution" so as to permit the flooding of State land.
Now the attitude of this Association—and this may be of interest to other States where the same question may arise—is as follows: At the outset, the Association opposed amending the Constitution for the purpose of permitting the flooding of State lands on two grounds; first, on account of the disastrous consequences to the forests which have invariably followed the construction of reservoirs in the past, and second, because it involved the principle of using public lands for private purposes without any guarantee of proportionate returns to the people whose domain was thus used. For several years the Association, with the unquestionable support of public opinion, maintained that position for the reason that there appeared to be no safe way of compromise.
During the past year, however, as the result of painstaking study of the problem by the New York Board of Trade and Transportation and our Association, a plan of legislation was evolved which it is believed may safely be adopted, and which, while conserving the public interests in the Adirondacks, will permit a reasonable use of State land for the purpose desired by the water storage people. The first problem encountered in working out this plan was presented by the fact that if the Constitution were amended generally so as to permit the flooding of State land, nobody could foretell to what extent or in what manner the lands might be flooded. It was therefore decided to prepare a law which should prescribe all the limitations and regulations in advance, and which should contain a provision that it should not become effective until validated by a constitutional amendment. Then, after this law had been enacted, it was proposed to adopt an amendment to the Constitution referring to the law specifically by chapter number and year, and permitting what was provided therein and nothing more. In pursuance of this plan, such a bill was drafted and introduced in the Legislature at its session which closed in May, 1910. It provided that storage reservoirs might be built upon State lands in certain specified water-sheds at certain specified points; that the flow-lines should be accurately surveyed and permanently monumented; that the total area of State land flooded should not exceed certain stated amounts—approximately 3 percent of the total area of the Forest Preserve; that all trees, stumps, and other organic material should be removed from within the flow-line; and certain other conditions designed to protect the public interests in the construction, maintenance and use of the reservoirs and the water-power developed therefrom. The law was not to become effective until validated by an amendment to the Constitution, and the constitutional amendment was to consist simply of an addition to the present section 7 of Article VII to the effect that "The provisions of this section may be modified as provided in chapter —— of the laws of 1910, but in no other respect whatever." By this plan it was believed that the safeguards would be erected in advance, and in voting for a constitutional amendment our citizens would know exactly what they were voting for. The bill, however, was defeated through the influence of the majority leader of the Assembly, and instead a concurrent resolution to amend the Constitution, proposed by him, passed the first of three requisite stages of adoption. The provisions of this amendment and the utterances of its author clearly reveal the attitude of the water-power interests represented by him, and present an issue of importance to every State in which the question of Conservation under State auspices may arise. This issue, in brief, is whether, after the State has granted the use of land already belonging to the people and has acquired additional land in the exercise of its power of eminent domain; after it has furnished the capital for building storage reservoirs and for managing them when built, the profits shall accrue only to the private individuals or corporations benefited thereby, or whether the State itself shall derive a reasonable revenue from its lands and reservoirs for the relief of taxation, or for public improvements, to the consequent benefit of all the people?
The Constitutional Amendment proposed by the water-power interests in the last Legislature provides only that the actual cost of the water storage shall be paid by the private beneficiaries, leaving to them all of the profits and advantages; and the author of the amendment publicly declared himself as opposed to the periodical regulation of charges for the use of water thus conserved, or to paying anything more than the bare cost of construction and administration. On the other hand, the proposition of this Association left the question of State revenue open for future legislation without any inflexible constitutional provision one way or the other. There the matter rests at the present moment. The issue remains to be fought out in the future, possibly in the Legislature of 1911, possibly at the polls the following November, and possibly later. At present the signs of the times are not encouraging to the belief that private interests will be given such valuable privileges without some reasonable return to the people from whom they are derived.
2—Improvement of Waterways. Water conservation for the improvement of commercial waterways has little connection with the Adirondacks. The principal waterway improvement now in progress in New York State is the enlargement of Erie Canal at a cost of $101,000,000. Very little of the water for the canal comes from the Adirondacks, and the construction of reservoirs on State forest land is not required to augment the supply.
3—Flood Prevention. The three principal streams within the borders of New York—the Genesee, Mohawk, and Hudson—are subject at times to disastrous floods. These are in no small part the result of human folly. In the first place, the indiscriminate denudation of forests of the greater part of the State has removed one of the most valuable natural regulators; and it is the universal complaint that such denudation has resulted in the spasmodic flow of streams which are dry or low at one season and raging torrents at another. In other cases, as for instance at Rochester, on the Genesee, the river has been obstructed by bridge piers unscientifically placed, which obstruct the flow of water and cause great damage. The Hudson, from the confluence of the Mohawk to Albany, is also subject to floods, and as the headwaters of the Hudson rise in the Adirondacks it has been argued by those who desire to have storage reservoirs for power purposes in Adirondack Park that the Constitution should be amended so as to permit the building of reservoirs in the Adirondacks to control the floods of the Hudson. As a matter of fact, the statistics furnished by competent engineers show that 75 percent of the floods at Troy and Albany are due to waters which do not originate in the Adirondacks, but can be controlled along the Mohawk; and that of the remaining 25 percent over half (say 15 percent) are due to water originating along the Hudson and its tributaries outside of Adirondack Park. So far, then, as flood control is concerned, it has little bearing on Conservation in the Adirondacks.
4—Sanitation. Except as a subterfuge, there is practically no connection between the subject of water conservation in the Adirondacks and sanitation. The Hudson is so polluted from Troy southward with sewage that the fish have been almost exterminated, and the industry of fishing on the Hudson which thrived within the memory of living men has almost disappeared. Sanitation of the Hudson from the head of navigation southward cannot be effected by storage reservoirs in the Adirondacks. The only prominence which the question of sanitation ever had in connection with water conservation in the Adirondacks was from five to ten years ago when persons who desired to build storage reservoirs on State lands, for the purpose of driving logs or developing power, used the plea of "public health and safety" in petitions presented to the River Improvement Commission to disguise their real purpose.
5—Domestic Use. There are those who think that in time the Adirondacks may be drawn upon for municipal water supplies for cities in the Hudson valley. The extent to which New York City has reached out for her water supply during the past 70 years would seem to lend color to such prophecies. In 1842 New York City introduced a water supply from the Croton Reservoir 40 miles distant; at the present time it is building a great reservoir in the Catskill Mountains 90 miles distant. Many people believe that eventually New York will be forced to go to the Adirondacks 200 miles away for a pure water supply, and that the resources of the Adirondacks should be preserved against that need and should not now be parted with for private use when there is the possibility that in the future they will be required for all the multifarious uses of human existence in the great metropolis. Water conservation in the Adirondacks for municipal use, therefore, is important chiefly with reference to the future.
Scientific Forestry on State Lands