The Great Tacoma Water Heist
City leaders uncover a massive discrepancy in the city's newly purchased water plant after boosters inflated the daily flow of local springs.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Today, Mayor Huson and members of the board of public works went out to Patterson springs to oversee the survey of the $1,750,000 purchase made from the Tacoma Light and Water Company. During the discussions of the sale, attention was called to the fact that several million gallons of the water listed for sale by the company had been measured twice; it emerged from the ground at one point, disappeared into gravel, and reappeared, being measured at both points. Taxpayers were originally told everything was in order, but a tardy investigation shows Patterson springs are 5,500,000 gallons short. While the plant was sold based on claims of a 7,300,000-gallon daily flow, engineers sent by the board of public works report the actual output is no more than 2,000,000 gallons per day.
“The board are going out to superintend a further survey, that they may be able to report to the taxpayers exactly how many million gallons they have been cheated out of.”
Public utility acquisition in the 1890s was a hotbed for municipal corruption, with private water companies frequently offloading overvalued infrastructure onto taxpayers. This early Tacoma controversy echoes modern debates over the cost and transparency of city-owned utilities versus privatized management.
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