334 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



from the Delaware and Schuylkill Kivers. Of the Schuylkill River 

 the Regional Planning Federation of Philadelphia states: "It is 

 doubtful if there is a river of similar size in the United States, unde- 

 veloped by storage, which is utilized more intensively and com- 

 pletely for water supplies than the Schuylkill." 



Even underground water supplies have felt the heavy drain of 

 human use. The coast resorts of southern New Jersey, for example, 

 which obtain municipal water supplies largely from deep wells, have 

 found the ground water table seriously lowered in recent years, and 

 face the threat of an invasion of salt water from the ocean. The 

 draught on the underground water supplies of Camden and the 

 adjacent territory in New Jersey is said to be increasing at the rate 

 of about 3 percent a year. 



The droughts of 1929 and 1930 emphasized the seriousness of the 

 municipal water-supply problems in the Northeast. In 1929 several 

 communities near Boston, having independent water supplies nor- 

 mally adequate to their needs, were obliged to tap the already depleted 

 metropolitan district water system with temporary pipe hastily laid 

 on the surface of the ground. An official of the Maryland State 

 Department of Health said of the 1930 drought in his State: 



Few things have more seriously affected our lives, our health, or our peace of 

 mind, than did the drought of 1930 * * *. Nevertheless, the results of the 

 long-continued drought have not all been bad. Faced with a disastrous shortage, 

 if not a complete lack of water, people in towns fed by public water supplies, 

 and others in settlements or on farms drawing water from wells, springs, or 

 cisterns, have been compelled to think and devise means of escape. 



Equable streamflow for domestic and industrial use remains a major 

 public problem of the northeastern United States. 



WATER POWER 



Water power has been extensively developed in the Northeast. It 

 was the basis for the original manufacturing supremacy of New 

 England. In Maine, 70 percent of ah 1 power for industries and 

 public utilities is developed from streams. The horsepower developed 

 by five plants recently constructed on a comparatively short stretch 

 of the Connecticut River aggregates 350,000. In 1931 New^York 

 produced more power from her streams than any other State in the 

 Union except California, and nearly twice as much as the State third 

 in rank North Carolina. At three points on the lower Susquehanna 

 River are power plants with capacities of 158,000, 170,000, and 378,000 

 horsepower, respectively, and the electrical energy developed on the 

 entire Susquehanna is about two thirds that which will be developed 

 on the Colorado River at the Hoover Dam. According to the figures 

 of the U.S. Geological Survey for January 1931, more than 30 percent 

 of the Nation's water power is produced in the Northeast. 



In the absence of a natural uniform flow, power plants must rely 

 upon costly reservoirs or else resort to supplementary steam power. 

 Streams from forested watersheds tend toward uniformity. Irregularity 

 in stream flow made necessary the Conowingo Dam on the Sus- 

 quehanna River in Maryland, which cost $52,000,000. 



NAVIGATION 



A third watershed and stream-flow problem of great local magnitude 

 in the Northeast is the maintenance of navigation. The annual 



