JERSEY CITY WATER-WORKS.

JERSEY CITY WATER-WORKS.

EVERY system of water-works ought to be reasonably remunerative. By proper management they are ordinarily made to produce a revenue to the city or company erecting them, if a proper charge is made for the use of water. Over in Jersey City the water-works seem to work the other way, the Board of Works being charged with gross extravagance in the management. It is asserted that while the Board of Finance has charge of the expenditures made by the Board of Works, the latter has charge of the collection of the water rates; and that they are not in the habit of rendering an account of their expenditures. Careful computations show that the water service should net Jersey City, over and above the expenses attending it, somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000 a year; while, as a matter of fact, the supply of water actually costs the city from $30,000 to $50,000 per year in excess of the earnings of the water-works system. It is now proposed to take the control of the works out of the hands of the Board of Works, and the legislature will probably be appealed to this winter to take action in the matter.

Outside of this, the citizens complain greatly of the impurities in the water, the supply being taken from the Passaic river at a point below where some very large factories and dye works discharge their refuse into the river. Newark is similarly afflicted in this respect, as it takes its water from the same sources at about the same locality.