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The water examiner states that the river deriving companies are actively engaged in
constructing or in making arrangements for the construction of additional storage reservoirs, and
that it is necessary for the proper treatment of the water that storage reservoirs capable of containing
water tor thirty days' supply should be provided by each company, provision which should be still
larger if the rate of abstraction should be increased. He calls attention to the position of the Grand
Junction and Lambeth Companies in this respect.
During 1898 there was great reduction in the volume of flow of the river Lea. Commenting
upon this, the water examiner says, " It seems to have been the fact that during the month of
September the average daily flow of the Lea was 3.3 million gallons less than the total statutory
quantity allowed to be drawn by the Navigation and New River Company collectively, leaving nothing
whatever of the volume of flow of the river for the use of the district of the East London Com pan)"
The daily supply of the East London Company was on the 22nd of August reduced to two
periods of three hours each, and the supply was thus continued until the 3rd of September, when the
daily supply was limited to two periods of two hours each. On the 23rd November the daily supply
was continued from the commencement of the first period in each day to the close of the second
period. On the 7th of December a part of the district of the company received constant supply, and
on the 14th December the whole of the district was thus supplied.
In November, 1898, the Water Committee reported to the Council, making proposals for
legislation in 1899; the report dealt with various questions in connection with London water supply,
that portion relating to the future supply of London being as follows—
We have stated that the question of the East London Company and that of the future supply of the
metropolis may be kept distinct, but at the same time the peculiar circumstances of this year have
affected the larger question to so great an extent that it seems impossible for the Council to avoid laying
before Parliament in the coming session its proposals with reference to this matter also.
It will be remembered that the conclusion arrived at by Lord Balfour's Commission, that sufficient
water to satisfy the requirements of London up to the year 1931 could be obtained from the valleys
of the Thames and the Lea were based upon the view that these valleys could be relied upon to yield at
least an average daily supply of 300 million gallons and 92½ million gallons respectively. Although
from the outset entertaining grave doubts as to the correctness of this view, we have hitherto accepted
it and devoted our attention specially to the question of the cost of a storage system necessary for
giving such supply, as compared with the cost of bringing water from Wales, and having become
convinced that the storage scheme would prove in the end the most costly and least satisfactory of
the two, we tendered evidence before the present Royal Commission, to show that reservoirs
at Staines capable of supplying 300,000,000 gallons a day, without depletion of the Thames
in dry years, must be very large and very costly. The present year has been dryer than any previous
year in recent limes, and it is evident now that a reservoir system capable of meeting the needs of a
year such as 1898 must be of such magnitude as practically puts all storage schemes out of the
question. But, beyond this, the experience gained in connection with the flow of the 'rivers Lea and
Thames during the present season has entirely confirmed us in our belief that Lord Balfour's Commission
were misled into erroneous views as to the quantity of water obtainable in dry years. The
report of the Commission with regard to the Lea was undoubtedly based to a great extent upon the
evidence given on behalf of the East London and the New River Companies. This evidence was that
between them they could supply over 110,000,000 gallons a day, and that this quantity could belargely
increased by storage reservoirs in the Lea valley. Since then the New River Company
have admitted that they can obtain from their wells only 24,000,000 gallons a day instead of
34,000,000 gallons as stated to Lord Balfour's Commission, and the East London Company, although
they have doubled the capacity of their storage reservoirs, have nevertheless made default. The fact
is that during the whole of the present year the entire volume of the river Lea has been used and
yet there has been a famine. Moreover, the average flow in September last over Fielde's weir was
only 8,250,000 gallons a day (of which it is believed a large proportion was water contributed by the
New River Company), whereas the information before Lord Balfour's Commission was to the effect
that the minimum known flow of the river for any month at that spot was 17,500,000 gallons. With
regard to the Thames the information before the Commission showed that its minimum total flow in
one month was 308,000,000 gallons a day. Last August the flow was only 272,000,000 gallons, and in
September it dropped to about 200,000,000 gallons, out of which the Thames companies had the right to
abstract 150,500,000 gallons, and did in fact in August draw 129,900,000 gallons. These facts have
convinced us that it is impossible to depend in a very dry year upon the quantity of water which the
Commissioners reported as being obtainable, and, if this is so, their report affords no solution of the
problem of Metropolitan water supply.
The evidence of the present year therefore seems to justify conclusively the views hitherto held by
the Council as to the necessity of immediately proceeding with some scheme for the future supply of the
metropolis on lines other than those suggested by Lord Balfour's Commission. The Council has already
decided that in its opinion the solution lies in having resort to the Welsh mountains to obtain the
necessary supplementary supply, and the time has new arrived for giving effect to this resolution. Our
report upon this subject, discussed at the Council on 25th February and 21st April, 1896, gave a detailed
statement of our entire proposals, and thereupon the Council resolved that the requisite augmentation of
the supplies of water should be derived from some other source than the Thames and Lea; that the valleys
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