OCR Text |
Show 644 INTERSTxVTE ADJUDICATIONS and to provide that this power might be leased for the benefit of the State treasury. Meantime, all the sewage in the drainage district, including Evanston, was turned into the main channel, and the water directly abstracted from Lake Michigan by the Sanitary District was increased from 2,541 cubic feet a second in 1900 to 5,751 in 1909, to 7,228 in 1916, to 6,888 cubic feet a second in 1926, not including pump age. The Sanitary District authorities have expended in the construc- tion of works for sewage and the deep waterway canal $109,021,613 including interest on bonds. In 1888, Congress directed the Secretary of War to make surveys for a channel improvement in the Illinois and Des Plaines Rivers. In 1892, Congress appropriated $72,000 to complete the improvement of the harbor at Chicago, and again $25,000 in 1894. Three engineers appointed by the Secretary of War reported to him that a diversion of 10,000 cubic feet a second through the Sanitary and Ship Canal would lower the levels of the lakes, except Lake Superior. In 1896, Congress appropriated money for dredging the Chicago River. The Sanitary District in that year asked for a permit from the Secretary of War to enlarge the cross section of the Chicago River, and an- nounced that the work had progressed so far that this must be done to make available the artificial channel under construction from Robey Street, Chicago, to Lockport, twenty-eight miles distant. The Secre- tary of War granted the permit, but said that this authority was not to be interpreted as an approval of the plans of the Sanitary District of Chicago to introduce a current into the Chicago River; that the United States should not be put to any expense, and that the authority was to expire by limitation in two years. Other permits relating to the same subject were issued by the same officer in 1897, 1898, and twice in 1899. The Act of Congress of 1899 amplified the provisions of an earlier Act of 1890 looking to the regulation, prevention, and removal by Federal authority of obstructions to navigation and altera- tion of capacity of the navigable waters of the United States by enact- ing Sections 9 and 10 thereof. Other permits were allowed by the Secretary of War-one on De- cember 5, 1901, allowing a diversion of 250,000 cubic feet per minute throughout the full 24 hours of each day. And in another instance on January 17,1908, a diversion of 350,000 cubic feet per minute until March 31, 1903, was permitted, in order to carry off the accumulations of sewage deposit lining the snores along the city, with the provision that after that, the flow should be reduced to 250,000 cubic feet per minute as required by the permit of December, 1901. The Board of Engineers in 1905 reported to Congress that the effect upon the level of Lake Michigan of withdrawing 1.0,000 cubic feet per second for an indefinite period had been the subject of elaborate investigation and that the conclusion reached was that the final effect would be to lower1 the level of the Lake six inches. An application for the flow of more water through the Calumet Sag Channel was declined by the Chief of Engineers, and was refused by the Secretary of War in March, 1907, and as the Sanitary District apparently intended to proceed with the work for which a permit had been refused, the United States brought suit in 1908 to prevent its |