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Show 658 INTERSTATE ADJUDICATIONS should be no determination that it was liable for the Sanitary District's acts, (2) that the Rivers and Harbors Act of July 3,1930 (46 Stat. 918, 929), and the then pending Great Lakes-St. Lawrence treaty with Canada had or would shortly require modification of the decree, (3) that "measures for the protection of the lives and health of its [Illinois'] citizens are exclusively within the police power of the State, and that no obligation to exercise that power is imposed upon the State by the Federal Constitution." All of these objections were rejected by the Court in its opinion, 289 U.S. 395 (1933)-the first on the grounds that "In this controversy between States, the State of Illinois by virtue of its status and author- ity as a State is the primary and responsible defendant," that "The adjudication as to the right of the complainant States to have the di- version reduced as provided in the decree is an adjudication * * * against the State as the defendant responsible under the Federal Con- stitution to its sister States for the acts which its creature and agent, the Sanitary District, has committed under the State's direction," and that the State had, in fact, adopted the diversion as a part of its plan for a continuous waterway from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico (pp. 400f); the second on the grounds that the Act cited expressly limited the quantity of water diverted for the Illinois waterway to that fixed in the Court's decree, subject to further study and report to the Congress, and that the treaty had not yet come into effect (pp. 402ff); and the third on the ground that "the question does not concern the ordinary exercise of the police power of the State, but rather concerns the duty of the State to take measures to end the condition which it has urged, and still urges, as a ground for the postponement of the relief to which the complainant States have been found to be entitled" (p. 405). Having rejected these and other objections to the Master's report, the Court found it unnecessary "at this time to enlarge the decree by a special requirement as to controlling works" and accepted the Mas- ter's conclusion that, although there had been delay, it was still pos- sible to construct the treatment works within the time fixed by the decree if funds were available. It, however, ordered the decree to be enlarged by adding to it the following provisions (pp. 411f) : "That the State of Illinois is hereby required to take all necessary steps, including whatever authorizations or requirements, or provi- sions for the raising, appropriation and application of moneys, may be needed in order to cause and secure the completion of adequate sewage treatment or sewage disposal plants and sewers, together with controlling works to prevent reversals of the Chicago River if such works are necessary, and all other incidental facilities, for the disposi- tion of the sewage of the area embraced within the Sanitary District of Chicago so as to preclude any ground of dbjection on tlie part of the State or of any of its municipalities to the reduction of the diver- sion of the waters of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system or water- shed to the extent, and at the times and in the manner, provided in this decree. "And the State of Illinois is hereby required to file in the office of the Clerk of this Court, on or before October 2, 1933, a report to this Court of its action in compliance with this provision." |
