Thank you for replying, I appreciate it. I enjoyed learning more about this history. Making a citation invites the risk of being contradicted, and I respect that.
I do still disagree for the following reasons:
- Jersey City started chlorinating in 1908; Maidstone, England started chlorinating in 1897 and Lincoln, England started chlorinating in 1905. So Jersey City wasn't the first to chlorinate their water.
However, Jersey City seems to be the first deployment in the United States, so perhaps that is what you meant. If this were the only issue I would concede the point.
- This was a civil matter and not a criminal matter.
- The dispute wasn't whether chlorination was legal or acceptable but whether it was sufficient to deliver "pure and wholesome" water. The city wanted them to build a sewer. The utility didn't really dispute that there was a water quality issue but they built a chlorination plant instead of building a sewer (while the lawsuit was still ongoing).
- The water utility won. They demonstrated that chlorination was sufficient.
