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Show MISSISSIPPI RIVER LITIGATION 707 Missouri v. Illinois 200 "U.S. 496 (1906) Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court. This is a suit brought by the State of Missouri to restrain the dis- charge of the sewage of Chicago through an artificial channel into the Desplaines River, in the State of Illinois. That river empties into the Illinois River, and the latter empties into the Mississippi at a point about forty-three miles above the city of St. Louis. It was alleged in the bill that the result of the threatened discharge would be to send fifteen hundred tons of poisonous filth daily into the Missis- sippi, to deposit great quantities of the same upon the part of the bed of the last-named river belonging to the plaintiff, and so to poison the water of that river, upon which various of the plaintiff's cities, towns and inhabitants depended, as to make it unfit for drinking, agricul- tural, or manufacturing, purposes. It was alleged that the defendant Sanitary District was acting in pursuance of a statute of the State of Illinois and as an agency of that State. The case is stated at length in 180 U.S. 208, where a demurrer to the bill was overruled. A sup- plemental bill alleges that since the filing of the original bill the drainage canal has been opened and put into operation and has pro- duced and is producing all the evils which were apprehended when the injunction first was asked. The answers deny the plaintiff's case, allege that the new plan sends the water of the Illinois River into the Mississippi much purer than it was before, that many towns and cities of the plaintiff along the Missouri and Mississippi discharge their sewage into those rivers, and that if there is any trouble the plaintiff must look nearer home for the cause. The decision upon the demurrer discussed mainly the jurisdiction of the court, and, as leave to answer was given when the demurrer was overruled, naturally there was no very precise consideration of the principles of law to be applied if the plaintiff should prove its case. That was left to the future with the general intimation that the nuisance must be made out upon determinate and satisfactory evidence, that it must not be doubtful and that the danger must be shown to be real and immediate. The nuisance set forth in the bill was one which would be of international importance-a visible change of a great river from a pure stream into a polluted and poisoned ditch. The only question presented was whether as between the States of the Union this court was competent to deal with a situation which, if it arose between independent sovereignties, might lead to war. What- ever differences of opinion there might be upon matters of detail, the jurisdiction and authority of this court to deal with such a case as that is not open to doubt. But the evidence now is in, the actual facts have required for their establishment the most ingenious ex- periments, and for their interpretation the most subtle speculations, of modern science, and therefore it becomes necessary at the present stage to consider somewhat more nicely than heretofore how the evi- dence is to be approached. |