598
(5)
120
Even the failure to prohibit or to protest against such connections might be construed by law to a tacit consent on the part of the water works management to the use of the pipes as conductors, and might relieve the electric railway company from responsibility for the injury which would inevitably result if the mains were allowed to convey current.
In the further discharge of the duties for which it was appointed, your committee respectfully submits for your approval the following preamble and resolutions as an expression of the attitude of this association on the question of electrolysis:-
Whereas the report of the special committee on electrolysis shows that wherever the single trolley system is in use a portion of the return electric current will flow on the water pipes, that whenever water pipes become positive to rails or gas pipes or other underground metal structures the water pipes are injured, and that wherever water mains, whether positive or negative to the rails, convey electric current they are liable to injury thereby near the joints; and whereas it further appears from the said report that there is no known practical method by which owners of water pipes can protect themselves against electrolytic injury resulting from the operation of single trolley cars, but that electric railways may, by means of the conduit system or of the double overhead trolley system, be operated successfully and economically, and without any injury to the water pipes; now, therefore, be it resolved "That the American Water Works Association, as a national organisation, herewith unanimously maintains that street railways have no right to so operate their cars as to cause injury and destruction to water pipes";
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and