Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/478

 474 cent. of the average discharge and 33 per cent. of the low water discharge of the entire river. It recommends as propositions for legislation by congress that the secretary of war be authorized to grant permits for the diversion (from the American side, of course) of a total not to exceed 28,000 cubic feet per second, this to include not only the power companies but the Erie, Welland and Chicago Drainage Canals. This prohibition is to remain permanent if after two years the Canadian government shall have enacted legislation prohibiting diversion of water pertaining and tributary to the Niagara River in excess of 36,000 cubic feet per second. Press reports indicate that the Canadian section of this commission, in making return to their government, dissent from the attitude of the American section, insisting that the most apparent damage to the falls must necessarily result from American diversion which affects the American side only. This attitude is undoubtedly just, and it is to be seriously questioned if the American section of this commission has given full weight to the fact that diversion of 28,000 cubic feet per second will much more seriously damage the flow of water through the American channel than the abstraction of 36,000 from the other side will affect the Canadian channel.

In the New York legislature action was begun by the introduction of a bill repealing four of the eight outstanding charters for power companies. As these four charters were already dead, the bill passed the senate. This was followed by another senate bill, introduced by the disinterested author of the former, restricting the consumption of water by the four remaining American companies to a maximum of 17,200 cubic feet per second each, or a total of 68,800 cubic feet per second, an amount more than the entire volume of water flowing through the American channel. The public is now too well informed to welcome just this brand of salvation for the falls, and the author of this bill deliberately killed it, saying that he was 'tired of trying to save the falls and could find no sentiment in favor of saving them.'

In the assembly Mr. Cox has introduced a concurrent resolution looking to a referendum for a constitutional amendment to prevent abstraction beyond that already chartered, and Mr. Foelker a bill so worded as to prohibit all American companies and all foreign companies doing business in this state to take more water than is actually being taken at the time of the passage of the act and instituting heavy penalties for violations of these provisions. This is the most radical measure that has anywhere appeared on behalf of the conservation of the falls and is probably the only measure that could actually effect a cure of the present menace to the American cataract. It is demonstrable and already demonstrated, that the full chartered consumption of waters by the American companies will dismantle the American falls, but the influence of these companies is far reaching, and in a public hearing on the two assembly bills mentioned it was decided to amend the Foelker bill so as to leave the companies their charter rights with penalties for transgression of these, and in this form, with the real vital clause extracted, this bill and also the Cox resolution have been reported and advanced. There never has been the slightest probability that any of the power companies would exceed their chartered rights of diversion. Indeed the entire contention has been that it is this chartered right which endangers the falls, and it is the recognition of this fact that constitutes the very meat of the recommendation by the international waterways commission. It does not seem, therefore, that the Foelker bill, should it become a law, will help the situation. Of more practical merit are the six bills, also introduced by Mr. Foelker, repealing the six