The Water Situation at Omaha

The Water Situation at Omaha

The water situation at Omaha, Neb., is comparatively simple. The supply is municipal and the city has acquired a large water works plant at a cost of $7,000,000. Of this plant a large part lies outside of the city limits, for which reason there is a natural demand that a water district should be created that shall give the management of the plant, elected by the people, the necessary control over all portions of that plant, whether inside or outside of Omaha. So far as concerns the portion inside the city limits, the municipality, of course, enjoys that control. Over that portion, however, which is outside these limits it has no jurisdiction—that is vested in the hands of the government of Nebraska, and for it only the legislature can legislate. For such legislation Omaha petitions, on the ground that it is “desirable.” It is more; it is necessary and is only what has been granted to other cities that own a municipal plant, parts of which extend outside of the city limits. Omaha’s water supply is pumped from Florence, which, although it is in the same county (Douglas) as Omaha, is not within its limits, and nearly half of that supply as pumped is delivered to South Omaha (also in Douglas county, lmt lying outside the limits of the city of Omaha), chiefly to the packing houses. Without the jurisdiction petitioned for that portion of the plant which is not in Omaha itself is in danger of being wrecked— say, by the threatened secession of South Omaha’s packing houses, already referred to. To take it out of the power of those who arc against a policy of public ownership to wreck a public utility owned by the people themselves, it is proposed to organize all these municipalities— Omaha, South Omaha. Florence or others— served by the plant and to give them an equal voice and vote in the management of the plant as well as in the election of the water board that administer it. To the management of the plant is also to be given the same authority to protect it and operate it in any part of the district. The bill pending in the legislature is opposed only by some big corporations that are against municipal ownership: by others that want to run a competing plant supplying themselves as well as other customers: by the politicians of one ward in the city that is anxious to get the plant into its own hands and run it as a political machine, and out of revenge, it is claimed, by one influential politician.

The water situation at Omaha, Neb., is comparatively simple. The supply is municipal and the city has acquired a large water works plant at a cost of $7,000,000. Of this plant a large part lies outside of the city limits, for which reason there is a natural demand that a water district should be created that shall give the management of the plant, elected by the people, the necessary control over all portions of that plant, whether inside or outside of Omaha. So far as concerns the portion inside the city limits, the municipality, of course, enjoys that control. Over that portion, however, which is outside these limits it has no jurisdiction—that is vested in the hands of the government of Nebraska, and for it only the legislature can legislate. For such legislation Omaha petitions, on the ground that it is “desirable.” It is more; it is necessary and is only what has been granted to other cities that own a municipal plant, parts of which extend outside of the city limits. Omaha’s water supply is pumped from Florence, which, although it is in the same county (Douglas) as Omaha, is not within its limits, and nearly half of that supply as pumped is delivered to South Omaha (also in Douglas county, lmt lying outside the limits of the city of Omaha), chiefly to the packing houses. Without the jurisdiction petitioned for that portion of the plant which is not in Omaha itself is in danger of being wrecked— say, by the threatened secession of South Omaha’s packing houses, already referred to. To take it out of the power of those who arc against a policy of public ownership to wreck a public utility owned by the people themselves, it is proposed to organize all these municipalities— Omaha, South Omaha. Florence or others— served by the plant and to give them an equal voice and vote in the management of the plant as well as in the election of the water board that administer it. To the management of the plant is also to be given the same authority to protect it and operate it in any part of the district. The bill pending in the legislature is opposed only by some big corporations that are against municipal ownership: by others that want to run a competing plant supplying themselves as well as other customers: by the politicians of one ward in the city that is anxious to get the plant into its own hands and run it as a political machine, and out of revenge, it is claimed, by one influential politician.