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Show 642 INTERSTATE ADJUDICATIONS prayed that the defendants be enjoined from permanently diverting water from Lake Michigan or from dumping or draining sewage into its waterways which would render them unsanitary or obstruct the people of the complainant States in navigating them. The State of Illinois filed a demurrer to the bills and the Sanitary District of Chicago .an answer, which included a motion to dismiss. The States of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana, by leave of Court, became intervening co-defendants, on the same side as Illi- nois, and moved to dismiss the bills. The demurrer of Illinois was overruled and the motions to dismiss were denied, without prejudice. Thereupon the intervening defendants and the defendants, the Sani- tary District and the State of Illinois, filed their respective answers. The States of Mississippi and Arkansas were also permitted to inter- vene as defendants, and adopted the answers of the other interveners. The answers of the defendants denied the injuries alleged, and averred that authority was given for the diversion under the acts of the Legislature of Illinois and under acts of Congress and permits of the Secretary of War authorized by Congress in the regulation of interstate commerce. All the answers stressed the point that the diversion of water from Lake Michigan improved the navigation of the Mississippi River and was an aid to the commerce of the Missis- sippi Valley and sought the preservation of this aid. They also set up the defense of laches, acquiescence and estoppel, on the ground that the purposes of the canal and the diversion were known to the people and the officials of the complainant States, and that no protest or complaint had been made in their behalf prior to the filing of the original bills herein. The Master has made a comprehensive review of the evidence before him in regard to the history of the canal, the extent and effect of the diversion, the action of the State and Federal Governments, the plans for the disposal of the sewage and waste of Chicago and the other territory within the Sanitary District, as well as the character and feasibility of works proposed as a means of compensating for the lowering of lake levels. From this review we shall take what will assist us in the consideration of the issues deemed necessary to be con- sidered on the exceptions to the report. We shall first consider in brief the parts taken by Congress and the State of Illinois and their respective agencies in the construction of the Sanitary District Canal and the creation of the Lake Michigan diversion. By the Act of March 30, 1822, c. 14; 3 Stat. 659, Congress author- ized Illinois to survey and mark, through the public lands of the United States, the route of a canal connecting the Illinois River with Lake Michigan, and granted certain lands in aid of the project. A further land grant was made in 1827. The canal was completed in 1848. The canal crossed the continental divide between the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers, on a summit level eight feet above the Lake, and then paralleled the Des Plaines River and the Upper Illinois River to La Salle, Illinois, where it entered the latter stream. The summit of the canal was supplied with water by pumps located in a plant on the Chicago River. Originally, only enough water was pumped to answer the needs of navigation in the canal, but thereafter, in 1861, |
