HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



549 



competent to declare that certain feeders shall cease to be a part 

 of the canal, especially when such feeders cease to be necessary 

 or useful for this purpose. 



The commissioners also pointed out that by the revised statutes 

 the legislature has enacted that whenever any water may be spared 

 from any canal or works connected therewith without injury to 

 the navigation or safety of such canal, a sale of such surplus 

 water may be made. The commissioners recognized, however, 

 that this act provides that the State shall have the right wholly 

 to resume the waters so conveyed and the privileges thereby 

 granted whenever it shall become necessary for the use or safety 

 of the canal, but on this point they suggested that if the State 

 by an act of the legislature has the power to make a revocable 

 grant of waters of a feeder of the canal, but not necessary for 

 its use and safety, it also has the power to make an irrevocable 

 grant of such waters. The plan proposed by Mr Croes included 

 the construction by the city of Syracuse of a compensation reser- 

 voir on Carpenter's brook, whereby the water taken from 

 Skanea teles lake for the public water supply of the city of Syra- 

 cuse may be returned to the State in kind. Such an exchange, the 

 commissioners said, could in no way impair the usefulness or 

 safety of the Erie canal, nor in any manner injure the interests 

 of the State. The commissioners also said that it did not seem 

 to them that such forced or technical interpretation of the con- 

 stitution should be resorted to as would preclude the possibility 

 of a municipality of nearly 100,000 people securing a proper and 

 suitable source of water supply. They believed indeed that the 

 necessities of the city in this regard were ,so urgent, and its wel- 

 fare and prosperity so largely dependent upon securing water 

 from Skaneateles lake, that the authorities of the State should 

 feel constrained to accede to the demand of the city for this water 

 as the source of its municipal supply. 



Following the special report of the commissioners, chapter 728 

 of the laws of 1889 — An Act to establish and maintain a water 

 department in and for the city of Syracuse — was enacted. This 

 act was strongly opposed by those interested in the Erie canal, 

 the opposition being chiefly on the ground that the taking of the 

 waters of Skaneateles lake for the supply of the city of Syracuse 



