Koroknai Ákos – Schlégel Oszkár: A Rimamurány-Salgótarjáni Vasmű és elődvállalatainak vízgazdálkodása 1808-1918. (Vízügyi Történeti Füzetek 11. Budapest, 1978)
SUMMARY For a long time in the past, industrial water use was equivalent to water power generation. It was only in the 18 th —19*h centuries that water appeared as an industrial raw material used in the production of goods. Water as an essential prerequisite of metallurgy was present with changing and expanding role and growing importance in the period of charcoal fired smelters, then later in coke production and firing, assuming an even greater role to it in modern steel manufacture on large-scale industrial basis. The problem of industrial water supply and the struggle for water in metallurgy emerged parallel to the concentration of production, in the period where modern companies of the heavy industries developed. A typical example of this process was the evolution and operation of the RMST (Rimamurány—Salgótarján) Company. The predecessors of the RMST were founded at the beginning of the 19th century, still in the feudalistic era. The Murány Union was founded in 1808, while the Rima Coalition in 1810 by steel producers in Gömör County. As a joing venture of these two shareholding companies (!) the Association of the Gömör County Steel Producers was founded in 1845. These three merged in 1852 to form the RIMA Company. Among the preducessors the Salgótarján Iron Refinery Co. Ltd was founded latest, in 1868 and started operating in 1870 using up-to-date advances in technology. Looking for beyond the national boundaries, the talented technical manager of the new company L. Borbély raised and modernized the technical standards of this new plant, as a consequence of which it has surpassed soon the other competitors struggling with obsolence and the difficulties of scattered plant location. In view of the successes, RIMA initiated a merger with SALGÓ as early as the middle of the 1870ies accomplished, however, only in 1881. This gave birth to the largest and most advanced heavy-industrial company of the country developed into a vast and modern vertical heavy industrial plant by its technical manager L. Borbély by making full use of the natural conditions, and by exploiting to full advantage the opportunities offered by the concentration of financial and intellectual resources. Some of the plants were reorganized and expanded, some rebuilt entirely applying the latest advances in technical development. The RMST has incorporated successively the other minor steel works and companies in the region, thus the Andrássy Steel Mills along the Sajó River in 1900. Successive concentration of production, integration or minor plants, extension of major ones, as well as a reorganization of production raised repeatedly the problem of industrial water supply. The first step towards a solution consisted invariably of securing the water rights, accomplished by the predecessors of RMST prior to the promulgation ot the Water Act (1885) normally on the basis of traditional feudalistic legal practice. The individual companies, as legal persons, succeeded in general the feudalistic landowners as natural persons. The companies' policies displayed the trend to enjoy the advantages secured under the law, with minor attention only to complying with the obligations resulting therefrom (maintenance of the water works securing water supply). Foundation of the RMST, as the largest industrial complex thus far, has raised the problem of industrial water supply in a more acute form than ever before. At the same time the Water Act of 1885 providedforthe revision of existing water rights, as well as for the introduction of water files, creating the conditions for statistical fiting, the prerequisite of advanced and deliberate water administration. This has brought about a significant change over the formerly rather loose policy followed in connection industry and water administration alike.
