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Show -96- This idea assumed an international aspect and had diplomatic trading value in the early negotiations between the United States and Great Britain over the opening of navigation on the St. Lawrence River;191a but the national urge for completion of the project declined with the expansion of railway systems to and from the lake front; and the original dreams of a nationally important waterway from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi have not yet come true. In the building of ths City of Chicago, however, the usual practice of : that. age was followed in discharging the city's sewage into the Chicago River and Lake Michigan-the latter at the same time supplying water to the city for domestic-use. ^'he growth of the city and the health of its inhabitants soon forbade the continance of such unsanitary practice; and a plan was then devised for dumping the sewage of the city into the Chicago River and float- ing it over the continental divide, (through the canal built primarily for navigation purposes) and eventually into the Mississippi River. At the out- set this did not interfere with navigation, and but little attention was paid to the line of demarcation between federal and state authority. But settle- ment and population advanced rapidly in this vicinity. .It was soon organized into the Sanitary District of Chicago-eventually including more than fifty cities, towns and villages besides the one great city. The problem of sewage disposal under the plan so adopted made it necessary for the Sanitary District to deepen the canal across the continental divide to a depth below the level of Lake Michigan, reverse the Chicago River frcan a stream flowing into the Lake to one flowing out of it and through the canal to the rivers tributary to the Mississippi; drawing more and more upon the apparently inexhaustible waters of the Great Lakes to flush the giant open sewer which had come to be used only secondarily for navigation as the population of the district con- tinued to grow. The enactment by Congress of the acts of I89O and 18991 prohibiting ob- structions in, or. diversions affecting navigable capacity of., such waterways without its consent, to be given or refused through the Secretary of War, caused the Sanitary District of Chicago to seek and obtain permits from that federal, ^official for diversions-increasing from time to time until finally navigation interests complained that the l.evel of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River was being lowered all the way to tide water at the Atlantic Oceano Then the Secretary of War refused to issue permits for any further increases in diversion and so left the prohibitory acts of Congress to operate against the same. But the. Sanitary District of Chicago proceededj nevertheless, to take the water it needed, denying the existence of the in- jury complained of, and asserting authority in any event under the sovereignty of the State of Illinois, as well as by natural right, to diver.t from Lake Michigan and use as much water as might be necessary to .supply the. domestic needs and preserve the health of its inhabitants. . ¦ -. . . In the year I9O8 the United States brought suit in the federal'district court at Chicago to restrain the Sanitary District from diverting more than the quantity of water allowed under the permits of the Secretary of...IVarj but °la Consult, supra, footnote #89, p. 166. |
