METERING WATER FOR PUBLIC PURPOSES 109 



private and whether the water is paid for or not. Good business 

 management requires that all water should be paid for. 



For all use of water in public buildings, for street sprinkling, sewer 

 flushing and public fountains, useful or ornamental, the municipality should 

 pay the same rates as any private consumer for like service, the water 

 department being conducted strictly as a business enterprise. J. C. 

 Chase, Jour. N.E.W.W. Assn., Vol. XVII, 1903, p. 175. 



Even where works are owned by the city, other city depart- 

 ments using water should pay for what they use. Their appro- 

 priation should be made sufficient to make this possible. The 

 water works department is entitled to the revenue as part of 

 its just earnings, and to require that certain takers be furnished 

 without charge, or at less than cost, simply means that other 

 takers must pay higher rates. 



Only a few American cities have actually followed this 

 practice, but it is to be highly commended, and on its merits 

 it ought to be everywhere adopted. 



Most American water departments have supplied water without charge 

 to other city departments, and the water departments have had to pay 

 dearly for this generosity. For other city departments receiving water 

 without cost and without limit are the most incorrigible wasters of water. 

 The loss of water, which is equivalent to loss of revenue, and to increased 

 operating expenses to keep up the supply, is a direct hardship on the water 

 departments. Further the loss is not limited to the direct loss. The exam- 

 ple of public waste of water is irreconcilable with demands for private 

 suppression of waste, and the public is not slow to see the point and act 

 on it. 



The only adequate way to stop this abuse is to meter the water to each 

 department and collect for it at current rates from the appropriations for 

 that department. 



It need only be suggested that no successful commercial or manu- 

 facturing business is operated without making charges between different 

 stores, factories and departments, and the necessity for such charges is 

 certainly not less in city business. Hazen, " Clean Water," p. 167. 



Where it is required by law or by custom that certain services 

 should be furnished without charge there is a procedure that has 

 been sometimes used with the best of results. This consists 

 in making a formal estimate of the amount of water reasonably 

 needed for each such service, and notifying those responsible 



