CONFLICT WITH CHICAGO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19163, 31 October 1925, Page 16

CONFLICT WITH CHICAGO

WATER FROM GREAT LAKES.

CANADIAN RESENTMENT. APPEAL TO WASHINGTON. [FROM our own correspondent. ] TORONTO. Sept. 26. Within memory, the water in the Great Lakes and connecting rivers has never been as low as it is now. There have been seasons of low water and of high water, but already this season there has ',beeu a drop of 2ft. from last year, which was itself a low-water year, and all records have been broken. .The public is now beginning to appreciate a statement made a year or two ago by Professor A. P. Coleman, of Toronto University, to the effect that it would be quite feasible to divert, all the waters of the Great Lakes and replace the greatest fresh water navigation system in the world by a great dry barren gash. Everywhere the low-water phenomenon is being blamed on what is known as "the Chicago water steal," under which, for sanitation purposes, Chicago diverts i.0,00G cubic feet per second from Lake Michigan.

A Sanitation Problem. Chicago claims that water diversion is necessary for the treatment of her sewage ; that it is utterly impossible to pour this sewage into Lake Michigan and take drinking water from the same reservoir. But the identical problem has had to be faced by every other city on the Great j Lakes, and all have solved it in a modern way. Toronto, for example, has erected great, sewage disposal plants which leave only a comparatively inoffensive effluent for Lake Ontario, from which is taken a complete water supply, chlorinated on occasion, that is absolutely vyholesonta; typhoid has been banished from Toronto.. Chicago continues to pour her sewage into an open drain and says she needs 10,000 cubic feet of water per second to flush it down to the Mississippi Kiver. Chicago is now building modern sewage disposal tanks—but very slowly! By 1929, according to the War Department's ultimatum, these plants must serve 1,200,000 people.. But that is only one-third of Chicago's population. Inevitably Water diversion from the lakes will be desired for the other two-thirds. Perhaps, in 15 or 20 years Chicago will be treating ail her sewage. And then will the "great water steal" cease? A Huge Canal Scheme, By that time a new staggering and permanent factor will have arisen. It is the Pan-American Inland Waterway, connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Great Lakes, a scheme that may set the Mississippi basin against the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes Basin in a vital struggle. The disturbance in Egypt caused by the cotton planters of the Soudan will be as nothing to the uproar on the St. Lawrence, if the Mississippi is allowed to drain the Great Lakes.

The suspicion is now raised in that Chicago's "absurd sewage problem" has been used as a screen to accomplish a water diversion that will supply the needs of the Pan-American Inland Waterway.

It is said the canal will be completed by the time Chicago's sewage disposal plants are completed and, in the words of a report of the United States Engineering Board of Beview: "The diversion of 10,000 cubic feet at Chicago would make feasible a 9ft. channel without locks from the Gulf of Mexico to within 100 miles of Chicago, and but five locks would be necessary for the remainder of the distance." Grave Apprehensions, Canada is wondering whether the 10,000 cubic feet, is gone forever, and whether the 10,000 cubic feet—which is about one-fifteenth of all the water that flows over Niagara—will be multiplied as Chicago's original 4000 cubic feet has now been multiplied to 11,000; and whether there is a real menace to the very existence of the Great Lakes. These apprehensions might not find lodgment were it not for current conditions in the lakes. The other day 40 vessels lay stranded in the Welland Canal because of low water—an unprecedented occurrence, At summer resorts the new conditions are seen at their worst. Boat houses are perched far inland like henhouses. Channels that used to lead to cottage wharves are dry land and wharves are set like tent platforms on eminences of their own. Cottages that used to be upon islands are on the mainland now. Former water channels are becoming marshes. Water pumps suck air. Steamers cannot call at certain former points. Even as far east as Montreal, unprecedentedly low water prevails and boats have been running aground in the St, Lawrence. Ocean vessels have been compelled to sail without loading to capacity because of lack of water. These things are a foretaste of what will happen if the lowering continues. Great communities have staked their existence on reasonably permanent watar conditions. Not only navigation but water supply and sewage disposal systems are based on previously existing levels. Billions of dollars are at stake. Chicago's Plea of Innocence.

There is, it .5 true, some mystery about the whole question of water levels. Chicago claims tint present abnormal conci - tions are not due to its diversion, that the Great Lakes are suffering from a natural period of ebb, though perhaps in exaggerated form. Chicago trusts that the Great Lakes water level will come back. If it does come back, say in the next three or four years, she hopes she will be acquitted. Canadian 'opinion has this year been aroused on the issue as never before. The issue is the subject of diplomatic representations between Ottawa and Washington though the details of these representations are not known. In a statement the other day, Mr. George P. Graham, Canadian Minister for Railways and Canals, said the Dominion Government had approached this question with the United States authorities in a friendly spirit, and there were reasons to hope their efforts would be successful. "It will not be long," 110 said, " before some final action is taken which will compel a decision that will protect the waterways that belong to us."