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Show GREAT LAKES LITIGATION 647 The great losses to which the complainant States and their citizens and their property owners have been subjected by the reductions of levels in the various Lakes and Rivers except Lake Superior are made apparent by these figures. The pleadings question the jurisdiction of this Court and the suffi- ciency of the facts set forth in the bill to constitute a cause of action. These issues, although raised, are not pressed by the defendants and we concur with the Master in his conclusion that they are met com- pletely by our previous decisions. Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U.S. 208; s.c. 200 U.S. 496; Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1; /Sanitary District of Chicago v. United States, 266 U.S. 405; Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U.S. 125; s.c. 206 U.S. 46: Nem York v. New Jersey, 256 U.S. 296; Wyoming v. Colorado, 259 U.S. 419; North Dakota v. Minnesota, 263 U.S. 365; Pennsylvania y. West Virgmia, 262 U.S. 553, 623; 263 U.S. 350; Georgian. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U.S. 230,237. The controversies have taken a very wide range. The exact issue is whether the State of Illinois and the Sanitary District of Chicago by diverting 8,500 cubic feet from the waters of Lake Michigan have so injured the riparian and other rights of the complainant States bor- dering the Great Lakes and connecting streams by lowering their levels as to justify an injunction to stop this diversion and thus restore the normal levels. Defendants assert that such a diversion is the re- sult of Congressional action in the regulation of interstate com- merce, that the injury, if any, resulting is dam/num absque injuria to the complaining States. Those States reply that the regulation of in- terstate commerce under the Constitution does not authorize the trans- fer by Congress of any of the navigable capacity of the Great Lakes System of Waters to the Mississippi basin, that is from one great watershed to another; second, that the transfer is contrary to the pro- vision of the Constitution forbidding the preference of the ports of one State over those of another; and, third, that the injuries to the complainant States deprive them and their citizens and property own- ers of property without due process of law and of the natural ad- vantages of their position, contrary to their sovereign rights as members of the Union. If one of these issues is decided in favor of the complaining States, it ends the case in their favor and the diversion must be enjoined. But in the view which we take respecting what actually has been done by Congress some of these objections need not be considered or passed upon. The complainants, even apart from their constitutional objections, contend that Congress has not by statute or otherwise authorized the Lake Michigan diversion, that it is therefore illegal and that injuries by it to the complainant States and their people should be forbidden by decree of this Court. The diversion of 8,500 cubic feet a second is now maintained under a permit of the Secretary of War of March 3, 1925, acting under Section 10 of the Act of 1899, which it is contended by the complainants vests no such authority in him. They claim that the diversion is based on a purpose not to regulate navigation of the Lake, but merely to get rid of the sewage of Chicago, that this is a State purpose, not a Federal function, and should be enjoined to save the rights of complainants. If the view urged by the complainants is right, the necessity for the use of the 8,500 cubic feet a second to save the health of the inhabitants of the Sanitary District will then present |
