Country Life
By IAN NIALL Local_ controversies vary in intensity as well as in their area, and we are in the midst of one now that embraces not the adjoining parish, but a more distant city. The work of dam builders to regulate the water from the hills is something to be wondered at. The townsman uses that water with little thought of waste and this, I suppose, is natural since it is, after all, the rain from heaven, whether it falls on one's garden or pours out of a thirty-mile-long pipe. Experts, however, claim to calculate with accuracy the flow of rivers, and know how much water passes under the bridge. It is proposed to take something like 20,000,000 gallons from our watershed, and this also takes our breath, for competent estimators say that our river carries a daily average of 22,900,000 gallons. Those who seek to balance amenity with utility want far-away places to get their water from other sources, and remark that the plan will reduce a truly beautiful river to a stinking ditch. Cause, as well as anticipated effect, incenses those who live round about the river. It is a most sorry business, and an affair not calculated to improve feelings between town and country. 41
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