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Show GREAT LAKES LITIGATION 641 diversion in question without the consent of the United States; (3) that Congress had power to regulate the diversion, i.e., to determine whether and to what extent it should be permitted; (4) that Congress had not directly authorized it; (5) that Congress, by the Act of March 3,1899, had conferred authority upon the Secretary of War to regulate the diversion, provided he act not arbitrarily but in reasonable relation to the purpose of his delegated authority; (6) that the permit of March 3, 1925 (described in the opinion of the Court) was valid and effective according to its terms, the entire control of the diversion remaining with Congress. He recommended therefore that the bill be dismissed without prejudice to the rights of the plaintiffs to institute suit to prevent a diversion of water from Lake Michigan in case such diversion were made or attempted without authority of law. The case came before the Court upon exceptions taken by the plaintiffs to the master's report. Mr. Chief Justice Taft delivered the opinion of the Court. These are amended bills by the States of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, praying for an injunc- tion against the State of Illinois and the Sanitary District of Chicago from continuing to withdraw 8,500 cubic feet of water a second from Lake Michigan at Chicago. The Court referred the cause to Charles Evans Hughes as a Special Master, with authority to take the evidence, and to report the same to the Court with his findings of fact, conclusions of law and recom- mendations for a decree, all to be subject to approval or other disposal by the Court. The Master gave full hearings and filed and submitted his report November 23, 1927, to which the complainants duly lodged exceptions, which have been elaborately argued. When the first of these bills was filed, there was pending in this Court an appeal by the Sanitary District of Chicago from a decree granted at the suit of the United States by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, against a diversion from the Lake in excess of 250,000 cubic feet per minute, or 4,167 cubic feet per second. This amount had been permitted by the Secretary of War. In January, 1925, this Court affirmed the decree, without prejudice to the granting of a further permit by the Secretary of War according to law. 266 U.S. 405. On March 3, 1925, the Secretary of War after that decree enlarged the permit for a diversion not to exceed an annual average of 8,500 cubic feet per second, upon certain conditions here- after to be noted. The amended bills herein averred that the Chicago diversion had lowered the levels of Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, their connecting waterways, and of the St. Lawrence River above tide-water, not less than six inches, to the serious injury of the complainant States, their citizens and property owners; that the acts of the defendants had never been authorized by Congress but were violations of the rights of the complainant States and their people; that the withdrawals of the water from Lake Michigan were for the purpose of taking care of the sewage of Chicago and were not justified by any control Congress had attempted to exercise or could exercise in interstate commerce over the waters of Lake Michigan; and that the withdrawals were in palpable violation of the Act of Congress of March 3, 1899. The bills |
