Tacoma’s Water Crisis and the Million-Dollar 'Steal'
A court injunction cuts off the city's primary water source, prompting fears of pestilence and highlighting a suspicious, debt-laden municipal purchase.
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Tacoma is facing a severe water crisis after Judge Stallcup of the superior court granted an injunction restraining the city from using Clover Creek for its water supply. Mayor Huson testified that cutting off this source would lead to a water famine and pestilence, as the alternative supply from city gulches is considered filthy and contaminated by seepage. The legal action stems from a controversial million-dollar deal to purchase the water plant, which has left the city’s treasury exhausted and legally prohibited from borrowing further funds. Judge Stallcup criticized the transaction, noting that the evidence shows the city never had a legal right to the water and that the springs included in the deal were worthless.
“The right of the riparian owners in the stream is a property right that he may not be deprived of without his consent any more than of the cow or the house upon his land.”
This 1893 battle over the privatization and contamination of municipal water highlights the tension between public health and corporate control. Today’s debates over Seattle’s aging utility infrastructure and the rising cost of public services echo these same Gilded Age anxieties about who actually owns the city’s essential resources.
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