10 Third Annual Report of the 



STATE DEVELOPMENT OF WATER RESOURCES 



In submitting this, our third annual report, permit us to repeat 

 what we said a year ago: " There yet remains to be enacted con- 

 servation legislation covering the all-important problem of develop- 

 ment and utilization of the State's water resources. No question 

 of graver moment will come before this or any other Legislature of 

 our time." 



This great problem of hydro-electric development is measurably 

 nearer solution than a year ago. The march of events has been, 

 on the whole, propitious. 



The Long Sault charter has been repealed; the complicated 

 State, national and international situation at Niagara Falls is 

 being studied by a special legislative committee, with which this 

 Commission will cordially co-operate; the adoption of the Burd 

 amendment, permitting the construction of storage reservoirs in 

 the Forest Preserve, will materially broaden the range of con- 

 servation probabilities; last, but not least, the Legislature has 

 affirmed, in the passage of the Capital District hydro-electric bill, 

 and by decisive majorities, the principle of State development and 

 distribution of 1,500,000 horse-power now unused. 



The Conservation Commission, in 1912, formulated and pre- 

 sented to the Legislature, in the so-called Bayne bill, a compre- 

 hensive plan of State development. The Bayne bill contemplated 

 state-wide development, by the State itself, of a waste energy esti- 

 mated to be annually equal to that produced by the consumption 

 of 15,000,000 tons of coal. It empowered the Conservation Com- 

 mission to acquire lands, water privileges and water rights, to con- 

 struct transmission lines for the purpose of delivering electrical 

 energy to the various municipalities throughout the State ; such 

 municipalities being authorized to enter into contract with the 

 Commission for the use of power so transmitted, the maximum 

 cost to the ultimate consumer being fixed by the Conservation 

 Commission. The Bayne bill further provided that each munici- 

 pality pay its proportionate share of the cost of production and 

 transmission, including a charge for interest, upkeep, maintenance 

 and operation, with an amount sufficient to amortize the invest- 

 ment in from thirty to fifty years. No municipality would pay 



