MCUA history

Because Middlesex Water had the customers through Corbin and Midland had a source of water through Bergen, the two companies consolidated operations in 1897.

By 1907 Middlesex Water was pumping more than 1.3 million gallons of water per day and boasted assets in excess of $400,000 while posting a $56,000 profit.

More and more, Bergen, who continued to be involved in a number of business interests, came to rely on his new superintendent, Ambrose Mundy, who replaced Kellogg in 1908.

Clearly, what was required was better pumps and a larger main, but these improvements would be expensive, and Bergen contended that New Jersey regulators, the Board of Public Utility Commissioners (established in 1911), hindered his ability to borrow money.

He was replaced by 62-year-old Carl J. Olsen, the company's first formally trained civil engineer, who had been with Middlesex Water since 1926.

Not only did Mundy have the responsibility of overseeing the improvements to the company's water system, he served in the midst of a severe drought in 1960.

1969: A modern pumping station and treatment plant opens.

The state-of-the-art treatment plant, considered a modern marvel, was renamed the Carl J. Olsen Water Treatment Plant in 1973.

Olsen retired at the end of 1980 at the age of 80, the first time that the company's president did not die in office.

In 1990 Tompkins recognized a chance to acquire Tidewater Utilities, Inc., which serviced more than 3,000 customers in 60 Delaware communities.

1992: Tidewater Utilities is acquired.

In September 2001 Middlesex Water entered into negotiations to sell Tidewater Utilities to Artesian Resources Corporation, a Delaware public water utility.