DETAILS OF WORK OF 1907.

In the following pages the work and the results outlined in the foregoing pages in a non-technical way, will be described more fully from the technical standpoint, giving some of the reasons that governed the selection of the specific lines of study, but stating all as briefly as clearness and proper record for the use of those who follow in the work will allow.

SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION.

In brief, chapter 569 of the Laws of 1907 directs that the State Water Supply Commission "at once proceed to collect information relating to the water powers of the State," and to "devise plans for the progressive development of the water powers of the State under State ownership, control and maintenance, for the public use and benefit and for the increase of the public revenue."

Two lines of inquiry are ordered, the first relating to the feasibility and cost of specific projects; the second relating to the broad general subject of State water power development, including a financial plan and the draft of a bill for carrying the final recommendations into effect, "in order that the Legislature and the people may have before them at once the most complete and comprehensive statement of the possibilities of the water power of the State."

The Commission is required to designate which work of development should be first undertaken and which thereafter.

The meaning of the term "the water powers of the State" is ambiguous. In a broad sense, it may mean all undeveloped power sites within the borders of the State, or in a more restricted sense may mean those undeveloped water powers, where either the water rights, or the site, or both, are now owned by the State. From a study of the antecedents of the bill, there can be no doubt that the undeveloped storage reservoir sites, lying within the State lands of the Adirondack Forest Reserve, and available for increasing the water power of the Hudson river were also included under this term.

This act No. 569, 1907, also provides that study may be given to plans for the development of "such other water powers as may be brought to the attention of the Commission by the mayor of a city, or other chief municipal officer.

That a good degree of thoroughness and precision was contemplated by the act is shown by the specification in section 4 of the act, that reservoir storage capacities in cubic feet be ascertained, that the rainfall recorded on the watershed be reported, and that maximum average and minimum flow of the stream for each month of the year at any proposed dam, be ascertained in cubic feet per second. The act moreover calls for statements of the amount of power that could be developed, the probability of selling it, the probable gross and net revenues, the cost of structures, lands and riparian rights, etc., and in section 8, it is specified that "All final surveys, plans maps, calculations and estimates made pursuant to the provisions of this act shall be made with the same accuracy that would be requisite if the work and project so surveyed had been ordered to be done." So far as this work has yet been carried, I have sought to comply with this specification.

For carrying out the investigations thus specified, the sum of $35,000 was appropriated, and a date was suggested for presentation of the final report only eighteen months subsequent to the date when the bill became a law.

For such broad scope and great thoroughness as are thus specified in the act, the appropriation was insufficient and the time too short. The entire appropriation and the entire time allowed are smaller than I have sometimes found it necessary to expend on the surveys and studies for a single project of water power development before those financially interested were ready to decide upon actual construction.

Stream gagings, test pits, borings and accurate surveys are all very expensive and without them the quantity of water power and the cost of reservoir building cannot be accurately foretold.

Therefore, my first work was to review the field with much care and to select a small portion of the work evidently contemplated by the legislative act, such that while complying in thoroughness of investigation with the plain requirement of the law as far as the appropriation would allow, and keeping strictly

within its limts of time and funds, the facts learned would best. illustrate the general subject and present to the Legislature and to the people of the State in the progress report specified for February 1, 1908, the greatest possible amount of information upon the possibilities of water power development under State control.

It has seemed best to carry on this work of investigation vigorously while the funds lasted and thus to secure for presentation a year earlier than otherwise, the important facts regarding two or three of the subjects of greatest interest.

ANTECEDENTS OF THE FULLER BILL,

In deciding upon the precise scope of the work to be first undertaken, it appeared necessary to consider a little the history of events leading to the legislative act under which we were working.

In the message of Governor Hughes, presented to the Legislalature on January 2, 1907, under the topic Forest Preserves and Water Powers, after speaking of the further acquiring of forest tracts, he said:

"In this connection it is well to consider the great value of the Water Powers thus placed under State control. They should be preserved and held for the benefit of all the people and should not be surrendered to private interests. It would be difficult to exaggerate the advantages which may ultimately accrue from these great resources of power if the common right is duly safeguarded.”

He said further, in relation to the work of the State Water Supply Commission:

"It remains to be considered whether it is not advisable to provide a more comprehensive plan embracing in a clearly defined way the matter of water storage and the use of water courses for purposes of power. The entire question of the relation of the State to its waters demands more careful attention than it has hitherto received, in order that there may be an adequate scheme of just regulations for the public. benefit."

The response of the Legislature to this suggestion by the Governor, and to the protests urged by the Association for the Preservation of the Adirondacks against indiscriminate reservoir construction, is found in the Fuller Bill.

THE HUDSON'S IRREGULAR FLOW, AND THE ADIRONDACK STORAGE POSSIBILITIES.

It has long been recognized that the magnificent water power sites along the upper Hudson river at Hadley, Palmer's Falls, Glens Falls, Fort Edward, Sandy Hill and Mechanicville, all fall far short of their possible utility by reason of the extremely small flow of the river during the droughts of summer, and its small flow when the brooks that feed the river are icebound.

This undesirable irregularity in flow of the Hudson and certain other streams of Northern New York, has retarded their employment in the finer and more expensive mechanical processes such as textile manufacture and the other uses found along the Merrimac and other New England streams where storage has more generally been provided, and which finer manufacturing processes attract and support much larger industrial populations per horse power than the processes of pulp grinding and paper making, for which the Hudson water power continues to be chiefly used. Perhaps in the long run even the paper industry cannot hold its own in this locality against the lessening supply of pulp wood within convenient reach, if continuing handicapped by irregular power, or by the cost of making the supply of power regular by means of steam.

Storage reservoirs on the Hudson's head waters, supplying more uniform flow of water at the present industrial centers will surely add to their present development, and will in time tend to bring in new uses, supporting larger populations.

Until about twenty-five years ago lumbering had been the chief industry that called for water development on the Hudson above Troy; and sawmills require cheap power and cannot afford large expenditures per horse power in power development. Pulp mills, which followed, are but a refinement of lumbering, and also call for cheap power; and so until recent years the plea for

storage reservoirs has been based largely on the ground of the improvement in navigation that it was believed would result from reservoir building.

REVIEW OF PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS.

While organizing our survey parties and planning their work, a review was made of all previously published reports that it was thought were likely to present information useful in the present investigation. A brief abstract of the data found in these reports that are of special interest in the present study, is given below, both for data itself and for the purpose of making the reasons for our present lines of enquiry more clear. It appears to be a popular belief that most of the possible Adirondack reservoir sites have been already studied with a fair degree of thoroughness.

THE MCELROY REPORT OF 1867.

The report made to the N. Y. Canal Board relating to a survey of the Hudson river to Fort Edward, etc., and transmitted to the Senate, February 15, 1867, contains many interesting facts regarding possible improvements for the benefit of the navigation of the upper Hudson and some brief allusions to the water power that could be gained incidentally thereto, but it is plain that the attention at that time was focussed mainly upon navigation, and we find little data on storage or power development in this report which has not been replaced by later and more complete information. Mr. McElroy called attention to the great damage along the Hudson from floods and recommended surveys for storage reservoirs for flood relief and briefly called attention to their value for water power.

ADIRONDACK STORAGE REPORT OF 1874.

In the annual report of the Canal Commissioners of the State of New York for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1874 (p. 83), Farrand N. Benedict, C. E., formerly professor of mathe matics and engineering in the University of Vermont, acting under authority of legislative act of April, 1874, presented a very interesting report upon the regulation of the flow of the Hudson by means of great storage reservoirs proposed to be constructed