Johnstown Water Company has always been vitally interested in maintaining the quality and purity of the water it supplies to its consumers. Throughout the company ‘s history this concern has been evident. Throughout the years the company has followed a policy of extensive purchase of watershed land to safeguard the quality of the water. A very active reforestation program, begun in 1906, is also sponsored by the company. A full-time forester whose assignment is the care of the watersheds is a part of the Johnstown Water Company organization.
Another.step taken by the Johnstown Water Company to safeguard the quality of its water is the employment of a chemist and the maintenance of a laboratory where water from all the reservoirs is tested daily. In the past, there have been many outbreaks of typhoid fever in the Johnstown area. These outbreaks were especially prevalent during the months of August, September, October and November. Johnstown Water Company was quite often blamed for these outbreaks, but there never has been any conclusive proof that the typhoid in the city was caused by contaminated water supplied by the water company. At least one such epidemic, in 1917, was traced to contaminated milk, and several others were caused by water from privately drilled wells tainted by inadequate disposal of sewage. Samuel G. Dixon, Commissioner of Health for Pennsylvania, stated in 1908 that he doubted that Johnstown1s high typhoid rate could be traced to the public water supply since the disease never developed more extensively in any area served by one water source, but rather was evenly distributed throughout the area of Johnstown, Dixon felt that the high incidence of typhoid might be attributed to the great influx of an uneducated foreign group. As education and methods of sanitation became more widespread and better, the rate of typhoid decreased bearing out this theory. Johnstown Water Company has been maintaining the purity of its water with the use of chlorine as a sterilizing agent since 1917.
In the early history of the company, water was supplied to the consumer at a flat rate which permitted the consumer to use as much water as he wanted after payment. This system had many disadvantages, the greatest one being that it encouraged water waste. During the latter part of the 19th Century and the early years of the 20th the rapidly growing population of the Johnstown area placed severe demands on the facilities of the water company which did not then have its two largest reservoirs, Saltlick and North Fork. As a result, during summers and autumns it was often necessary to restrict the use of water to conserve the existing supplies. In addition, practices such as leaving faucets open all night in winter to prevent pipes freezing was an almost impossible strain on the resources of the company. Therefore on January 1, 1910, the company began the policy of placing meters on all new and existing lines, and by 1930 all lines of Johnstown Water Company were metered one hundred percent. This is a more equitable system because the consumer pays only for the water he uses and water waste is discouraged.
