OUTLINE OF TOPICS DISCUSSED PAGE. DEPARTMENTAL REVENUES. STATE DEVELOPMENT OF WATER RESOURCES. THE CAPITAL DISTRICT BILL.. ACCEPTED STATE POLICY. .9, 27, 49 10 11 12 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CONSERVATION COMMISSION To the Legislature: Herewith follows our report for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1913: DEPARTMENTAL REVENUES This department continues to be one of the great revenue providers of the State. Total receipts for the last fiscal year were $316,407.87, as against $256,002.84 in 1912 and $258,226.65 in 1911. To this increase of $60,000 over the previous year, hunters' licenses contributed largely -$161,490 this year as against $152,052 the year before. It is deemed likely that this item will run near to $200,000 next year. Net licenses brought in over $15,000 this year as against less than $9,000 the year before. All details of departmental finances appear in the financial statement appended to this report. Conservatively computed, the product of the State fish hatcheries and State game farm for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1913, including brood stock, had a commercial value of at least $300,600. Add to this the departmental revenues turned into the State Treasury during the same fiscal year- $316,407.87 and we have a total, in direct revenue or its equivalent, of $617,007.87. The total appropriations for this department, regular session, 1913, were $658,126.66. Total expenditures for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1913, $744,103.99. It will readily be seen that when the Conservation Commission's plan of utilization of ripe timber, elsewhere referred to in this year's annual report, as well as in last year's, is made effective, this department will become far more than self-supporting. STATE DEVELOPMENT OF WATER RESOURCES In submitting this, our third annual report, permit us to repeat what we said a year ago: There yet remains to be enacted conservation legislation covering the all-important problem of development and utilization of the State's water resources. No question of graver moment will come before this or any other Legislature of our time." This great problem of hydro-electric development is measurably nearer solution than a year ago. The march of events has been, on the whole, propitious. The Long Sault charter has been repealed; the complicated State, national and international situation at Niagara Falls is being studied by a special legislative committee, with which this Commission will cordially co-operate; the adoption of the Burd amendment, permitting the construction of storage reservoirs in the Forest Preserve, will materially broaden the range of conservation probabilities; last, but not least, the Legislature has affirmed, in the passage of the Capital District hydro-electric bill, and by decisive majorities, the principle of State development and distribution of 1,500,000 horse-power now unused. The Conservation Commission, in 1912, formulated and presented to the Legislature, in the so-called Bayne bill, a comprehensive plan of State development. The Bayne bill contemplated state-wide development, by the State itself, of a waste energy estimated to be annually equal to that produced by the consumption of 15,000,000 tons of coal. It empowered the Conservation Commission to acquire lands, water privileges and water rights, to construct transmission lines for the purpose of delivering electrical energy to the various municipalities throughout the State; such municipalities being authorized to enter into contract with the Commission for the use of power so transmitted, the maximum cost to the ultimate consumer being fixed by the Conservation Commission. The Bayne bill further provided that each municipality pay its proportionate share of the cost of production and transmission, including a charge for interest, upkeep, maintenance and operation, with an amount sufficient to amortize the investment in from thirty to fifty years. No municipality would pay |